


Tending a Wilted Blossom

by SumDumMuffin



Category: DC Super Hero Girls (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Comedy, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Tsunderes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2020-06-28 10:28:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19810393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SumDumMuffin/pseuds/SumDumMuffin
Summary: A love story between two unrepentant criminals. Psychologist-in-Training Harley Quinn can't resist trying to comfort a shy, burgeoning plant-villian, and Poison Ivy finds herself opening up emotionally to Harley Quinn as the latter bears the burden of being in a relationship with a sociopathic clown.Also, Barbara Gordon and Harleen Quinzel are friends, but only out of costume.





	1. Keeping in Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of these characters. They're owned by Diamond Comics 'DC' comics. 
> 
> I guarantee no expertise in high school, super heroics, dating, comforting a friend in an abusive relationship, horticulture, transcribing accents, Greek mythology, nerd pop culture, or romance. 
> 
> I especially guarantee no expertise in or even basic correct knowledge of DC superhero lore. Like, i could try looking some stuff up, but then I'd lose all my fake geek girl cred. 
> 
> I did, however, see all extant episodes of _DC Superhero Girls_ as of writing, so if there are irregularities with canon it's because I thought the story would be better if I changed them. Or I just forgot. I mean, the show's basically already a High School AU version of the whole DC comics universe; I feel like changing things around a little on top of that isn't breaking anything?
> 
> EDIT: This is likely going to be an extremely slow burn fic, or, more likely, a series of rambling character interactions and philosophical diatribes that tricks you into reading them with the vague promise of the main pairing eventually getting togetber, someday. The intention is that Harley/Ivy will be the main represented ship, that slowly emerges from Harley getting in a toxic relationship with the Joker, but it might take a while to get there and maybe there'll be other relationships along the way, but hopefully the character interactions are entertaining enough in the meantime. 
> 
> I also hope I don't have to, like, actually depict Harleen getting abused to convey that she's in an abusive relationship? Maybe I can just say it happens and then, get into the hurt/comfort? You know, when the fic isn't just random friendship navel-gazing tangents.
> 
> If this goes on long enough it'll probably become a straight up crack fic, but I'll hold off on labeling it as such until I feel it warrants it. Heads up for weeeiiird shit, though.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara works hard to both be the superhero she's always wanted to be, and also not lose contact with her lifelong best friend when said friend gets a boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Updated text messaging HTML tags. They should also still be legible if you hide the creator's style, too.

"Hey Harles, long time no see," Barbara said to her phone. She was on her bed in her pajamas. Her lights were off but her laptop were on, adding a gentle glow to the night.

Harleen posed dramatically, on her end of the call. "Yeah, ah know, ya downt needta guilt me cuz ah already gots that covered ta bits, an ahm sorry."

"Nooooo, I wasn't guilting yoouu," Barbara drawled, herself rolling on her bed. "But anyway, what happened? You get grounded? Did you lose your phone?"

"Nuttin so dramaaaatic," Harleen said, "'s'j'st, I got a booyy~~"

"Oooooo~~~~" Barbara soothed, "Do teeelll~~~"

"His name's Arthur, and we met during Theatre this seeeaasonn," Harleen said.

"Oo, a drama boy~"

"And he's funny!" Harleen said, "And he laughs at _my_ jokes, which is refreshing."

Harleen put on an exaggeratedly flat expression. "Like normally when boys say ya have a good sense of humor they mean that you just laugh at their dumb jokes to validate their attention seeking behavior, so you know ya've gots a catch when, well, he does it to you…"

"Niiceee," Barbara said, reflexively, just since she hadn't contributed background noises for the eight seconds Harleen was showing off that she was acing AP psychology.

"And like, he lets me know if some routines just don't work. Like, ima give up on the koala one, now."

Barbara pouted theatrically. "I could have told you that, Harles." She then furrowed her brow and flattened her mouth. "Seriously, though, I think a whole routine that's just, 'koala's, amirite' was a dead end."

Harleen stuck her tongue out and pulled her eyelid down at her screen. "But, it's like, We can do some comedy workshops, ya know? There's potential fer a relationship there."

"Thats great!" 

"But listen," Harleen said, "Ah down't wanta be one of those girls who drops all her friends as soon as she finds a boy-

"You mean like these last two weeks?" Barbara said she stuck her tongue out.

"Yeah, exactly," Harleen said. She then winked and stuck her tongue out in a similar fashion, "So, every Tuesday and Thursday night or something, we can chat, we can play vidja games, we can do some online livestream virtual couch Disney karaoke, stuff like that."

"Yes." Barbara said. She nodded.

"And if things come up then we _have_ to reschedule, no buts," she said, "I don't wanna lose my main girl just because she had ta move and I ended up hanging out wid otter people."

Barbara had also been hanging out with new people, so that struck a chord with her. "Yeah, definitely. I promise."

"How about you, Babs, what's new inna last two weeks?"

"No boys, but I did get a te- a clique," Barbara began.

And it was Harleen's turn to go 'ooooooooo'

* * *

The next day at Metropolis high, Barbara got to lunch early, to claim her team's regular table, and also so she could start texting Harleen as soon as possible since she liked having both hands to text optimally and you couldn't do that while holding a tray in line. 

Barbara looked up to see Diana join Karen and Zee at her cafeteria table. A glance at the food tables told Barbara that Jessica was in the slightly longer line for the non-meat options, and Kara was keeping her company. 

"What is it that about your glowing rectangle that preoccupies you so?" Diana said.

"Oh, it's my best friend," Barbara said, not looking up. "We started losing touch since I moved but we're gonna make sure that doesn't come to pass."

Diana tilted her head to the side. "Your best friend is a glowing rectangle?"

Zee started laughing, as she tried to explain modern telecommunication practices to Diana.

"Oh your, _best_ , friend...?" Karen said, to the ground.

Barbara paused.

"Oh, no no no-" Barbara said to Karen, "I mean, yeah, since I've known Harleen since we were little and we have similar interests- But I can have more than one best friend," Barbara said.

Karen's pout faded, just a bit.

Barbara physically placed her phone on the table in a performative gesture. "I mean, you all are my best friends- Diana and Zee and Jessica and Kara and especially you, Karen!"

Karen didn't seem convinced, but then Diana placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. 

"Girls," Diana said, in her stern but patient mentor voice, "one's love for someone does not diminish her love for the other people in her lives."

Karen scrunched her mouth to the side.

Diana made a polite amount of eye contact with the other three girls. "It is not worthwhile to subject our friend Barbara to friendship tests, and jealousy towards a friend's other friends is unbecoming," she said.

Barbara beamed. Maybe one day she'd be as wise as a 300 year old mythical homunculus forged by an alliance between a race of warrior women and some gods in order to slay other gods. "Thanks Diana." Then she immediately swiped her phone from the table and resumed typing.

Diana nodded sagely. "Anytime, friend Barbara."

"Okay, so, well," Karen said, "tell us about your friend?"

"Oh!" Barbara said, "Well, her name's Harleen and we've been friends since kindergarten."

"Cool!" Zee said.

"-and we communicate mostly through memes."

"-ah. Really?" Zee said, with less conviction.

"Yeah," Barbara showed her phone to Diana, and Karen and Kara since they were sitting in the right spot to also see it. "See, she posted a picture of a muskrat-"

Diana nodded. Zee and Karen blinked.

Barbara panned her screen up "- so I posted a picture of a baby teacup pig IN A TEACUP ahhhhahaha-"

Karen saw the picture and sighed in reflexive cuteness-proximity based catatonia.

"-and now we're just spamming the scream emoji at each other."

Zee blinked. "Oh... kay..."

"Which is good since it gives me time to plan my next move, because Teacup Pig in a Teacup is my most powerful gif, and maybe I shouldn't have burned it ten minutes into lunch hour…" Barbara frowned into the distance.

"What brought this on, though?" Zee said, to break the silence.

"Well, uh," Barbara said. She stopped poking at her phone, "She found a boy, so we're trying to make sure we don't stop bring friends."

"She discovered a boy and now that means she is in danger of not being your friend anymore?" Diana asked.

"No, that means," Karen said, "That her friend might end up accidentally spending all her time with her boyfriend instead of her old friends until they lose contact with each other." 

"Ah, I suppose, that is a mortal phenomenon?" Diana said. 

"Yeah, I guess you didn't have any boys on Themiskyra…." Barbara said, idly.

Diana scrunched her mouth to the side and furrowed her brows, slightly. "Boys are what you call your varieties of persons with smaller breasts and wider shoulders, is that correct?" She said.

Karen choked on her chocolate milk, just a bit. 

"Uh," Zee said, "Well, there's, more to it than that-"

"Yeah, they have, a Y chromosome instead of two X ones. 

Diana tilted her head to the side. "What are 'chromosones'?"

"Uh, they're-" Zee began. She pontificated ineffectually.

"Biological code," Karen said. "Like, what determines your hair and eye color." 

"So, for humans, being a 'boy' is similar to, having blonde hair?"

"Yes?" Zee said. She glanced at Karen, and at Barbara, who was currently busy browing tumblr, reddit, ifuuny, and deviantart simultaneously for a new picture to share to her best friend.

Zee sighed. "Okay, to cut to the chase, biologically, boys have, like, you know-"

Karen made a squeak once she realized what Zee was getting at.

"A different set of," Zee looked at the wall. Her cheeks reddened, "equipment, down there, that lets them couple with girls to make babies."

Diana blinked. "Humans don't just have the Stork make their babies?"

There was a chorus of blinking. 

"Did," Karen said, "your mom not tell you where babies come from?"

Diana frowned. "She did. They come from the Stork."

Barbara sighed and leaned over the table. "Girls. Being a boy, or a girl, isn't about, chromosomes, or equipment- its a confluence of personal, social, and cultural understandings of identity and one's place in relation to both your internal self image, how society views you, and how you want society to view you, that ultimately will vary on individual cases, even if we can generalize in most cases and be in the ballpark of correct and oh thank goodness, Kara and Jessica are here-"

"It's nice to see you too, Barbara!" Jessica said. "Why, what were you talking about?"

Zee, Karen, and Barbara looked at each other, sequentially, for a few seconds. "Babies."

"Oh," Kara said. She coughed. "Yeah, I see why- you want to change the subject- and we were talking about something super interesting," she turned to Jessica, "right?"

"Oh! Yes, of course," Jessica smirked, "I was just in the middle of elucidating Kara about the meat industry-"

Kara groaned.

  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


"Girls, I am so sorry, " Batgirl said to her assembled team, after she grappling hooked onto the ledge of the abandoned warehouse. It was evening, they were in the industrial sector of Metropolis, and crime was afoot.

"Harleen texted me on the way over, asking if we could do this weeks chat today instead of tomorrow, since she had something come up," Batgirl continued, "So, we gotta defeat Dr. Two Brains lickity split-"

"Oh, you misread the text," Zatanna said. She pulled out her phone, "We're fighting Dr. Two _Brians_."

Batgirl squinted at Zatanna's phone.

"It's just two people named Brian," Supergirl clarified.

In the background, Wonder Woman was asking Zatanna and Bumblebee what a split licking was.

"Muwahahaha~" came two voices, over at the warehouse. 

Wonder Woman led the team to pose heroically on the warehouse perimeter, just within line of sight of their adversary.

"Give up, Superhero Girls, you'll never stop me, the evil Dr. Two Brians!" Yelled two people named Brian at the assembled superheros. 

"Ever since the university conflated our credentials due to our shared name, allowing us to obtain our doctorate in half the time, contingent that we pose as one entity," they explained, "we have been kidnapping individuals whose psychological profiles are statistically anomalous compared to the general population, upon which we conduct surveys that suggest misleading information about the human psyche! Soon, we will amass enough individuals to have statistically significant correlations between blatantly untrue qualia, allowing us to make sensationalist and/or inflammatory headlines by publishing studies that technically meet the standards for scientific rigor!"

"Ookay, soooo," Batgirl said. She clicked her mouth and pointed finger guns at her team as she walked back to the edge of the building. "you guys got this?" 

"- after which we will then leverage our fame into providing predatory organizations with the veneer of legitimacy!"

"But the Doctor of Two Brians must be stopped, Batgirl!" Wonder Woman said. 

"Hey, not arguing with you there. Its just," Barbara lifted a foot towards the edge of the building, "this seems like a case where we don't need the whole team? So, can you do me a solid and, handle this, yourselves?" 

Wonder Women looked around at the rest of her team as they made various noncommittal shrugs and weak affirmations. 

"Very well, Girl of Bats,” Wonder Woman said. She sighed. “You may punch the road, today.” 

"Thaa~annnks!" Batgirl yelled as she grappling hooked away. “And it’s ‘hit’ the road.” 

* * *

And she got home just in time to watch three episodes of _Sarazanmai_ and then spend an hour arguing about whether or not Taylor Swift and Katy Perry ending their feud was a publicity stunt or not. Partway through, her team’s group chat told her they managed to foil their villain with no problem.

* * *

And because Barbara also liked being a superhero and understood the responsibility of the sworn protectors of the public, and she wanted to demonstrate to her friends that she did take their duties seriously, Batgirl made sure to get there early for the next fight- 

Which so happened to be the very next afternoon. It was cool that the opportunity to redeem herself occurred so soon.

"Alright Superhero girls," Wonder Woman said. She posed heroically. "The Gotham City Sirens are robbing the museum of natural history. We have to stop them.”

"Wait," Supergirl said, "Why would they call themselves ‘Gotham’ City Sirens?” 

Wonder Woman sighed. "I didn't pick their name. That’s just what they told me to call them, but I think most of them are based out of Gothem, and while they do not resemble the Sirens I am familiar with, the nomenclature rolls off the tongue.” 

"Speaking of nomenclature," Zatanna said, "Have we consider rebranding ourselves? Like, the title is the first part of our brand that people hear about: do you really want to waste that telling people we're superheros and girls?"

"I mean, its kind of obvious we're superheros," Supergirl said. She posed in the standard superhero pose.

"Also, girls," said Green Lantern, "but more to the point- is that really our defining characteristic?”

“I think it’s the major commonality between us all,” Bumblebee said, “I mean, we, don’t really have a unifying theme otherwise, between a techsuit, a ninja, a spartan warrior princess, a flying brick, a stage magician, and a space cop.” 

“But we’re friends,” Batgirl said, “And friends can come from all sorts of different backgrounds?”

“What, so we should call ourselves the ‘Super _Friends'_?” Zatanna said. 

“I think that might be taken?” 

“Well, even if we do call our team that, would it be any more descriptive or reasonable than, just, ‘Superhero Girls’?” Batgirl said, “Honestly, I think there’s actually some merit to being an all woman group, since there’s this, liiikkee,” Batgirl refreshed her smile and wobbled her head from side to side as she shrugged, “Cultural undercurrent of societal obstacles to female empowerment, so our very existance is one drop in the bucket towards buoying gender equality."

“Well, it’s something for our opponents to call us, in the meantime,” Wonder Woman said, having given up on trying to understand Batgirl's speech. Her statement was immediately preempted by their villains for the evening.

"Give it up, Superhero girls!" Catwoman said in the perfunctory villain preamble. She pointed theatrically as 4/5ths of her remaining villain group posed menacingly, "These priceless museum jewels and artifacts belong to us, the Gotham Sirens!"

“Well that’s not how property works in this legal system at _all_ ,” Batgirl said, under her breath. 

“Superhero Girls!” Wonder Woman said. She drew her sword and pointed it at Catwoman. The rest of her team posed heroically, "Prepare to fight!"

  
  


* * *

Batgirl grappling-hooked into the part of the museum where her usual adversary had run off to. 

"Hey, Harlequin, that's a nice outfit-" Batgirl yelled as she closed into melee distance, "For a Clown to wear!"

Harley Quinn cartwheeled backwards to dodge Batgirl's first punch, "Aww, thanks Bats-" she said, “Your outfit looks appropriately _batty_ itself.” 

“Aww, thanks!” Batgirl said, as she settled into a boxing stance and threw a few jabs at the villian, “I made it myself- do the ears look good? I only seem to see Batman’s cowl in silhouette so I don’t know if they’re concave or solid triangles-"

“RAAWWRR!” Giganta yelled as she waved her arms threateningly, theatrically. 

“Ugh, rude,” Batgirl said. She dodge-rolled to Giganta’s left, “We are _trying_ to have a fashion conversation here.” 

“GRAWR,” Giganta yelled again, “FASHION IS FOR NERDS.” 

“Actually, I think it’s traditionally the oppos-urk-” Giganta managed to grab Batgirl when the hero tried to run up her side. She pinned Batgirl to the ground. 

“Yeaah,” Harley Quinn said. She pulled her hammer from somewhere and sauntered up triumphantly to the captive hero, “She’s actually just wearing a XXXL Cavewoman costume, and I'm in my gymnastics unitard and some face paint.” Harley Quinn raised her hammer up in the air and she grinned, manically. “Your dedication to your costume is admirable, though.”

Before she was able to KO Batgirl, purple magic missiles blasted Harley Quinn from the side, and some weird magic film coated Giganta’s hands, allowing Batgirl to slip to freedom. 

“I mean, I’m just wearing my stage uniform, so, no judgement here for your fashion efforts.” Zatanna said. She waved her wand, theatrically. "Especially since it's so easy to judge you for your vilianny."

Batgirl tumbled up beside her and made her own heroic pose.

Zatanna tilted her head towards Batgirl. “I also believe your dedication to your costume is admirable.” 

* * *

  
  
  
  


In the botanical area of the museum, Bumblebee and Supergirl ran into the middle of the room- 

"Miserable humans," seethed a shaky voice from the shadows, "You think that nature is a trophy to keep for yourselves, voyeurs, gawking at your pillaged lootings in your little glass cages-"

The botanical exhibits that were still alive wriggled and then writhed and then exploded in lugubrious botanical tendrils and Poison Ivy triumphantly emerged from the shadows, arrayed by the newly awakened rings of writhing pointy vines-

Only to stumble as her left heel twisted.

"Ooo," Bumblebee said. She winced, "First time in stilettos?”

"N-noo~," insisted Poison Ivy. She stood up straight, on the second try. "Poison Ivy is a sexy avenging Villainess who isn't afraid of- of wearing sexy heels to crush puny humans under-"

“Honestly I thought your little elf boots looked fine,” Supergirl said.

Bumblebee waved the air in front of her comrade’s face. “Its- more about how they make you feel,” she said, more quietly. "Shoes can be very important to a girl's self image."

Supergirl looked down at the combat boots that were part of her costume. “Huh, okay.” 

Bumblebee turned back to the villain. "I get that." Bumblebee said, “Like, how maybe, _I’m_ not all that confident- but _Bumblebee_ isn't afraid to football tackle a villain!”

And Bumblebee leaned down into a sprinting position before bolting at Poison Ivy. 

Poison Ivy screamed and covered her face with her forearms, which caused the mess of vines to spring up-

And without losing stride Bumblebee shrunk down and started flying, dodging the vines. Supergirl also started flying, but she tried to brute force her way through the foliage, and eventually it stopped working. 

Bumblebee, however, navigated her way through the vinefield successfully. She embiggened herself just before making contact with Ivy, tackling her to the ground. 

The vines went limp, and Supergirl freed herself. 

Bumblebee and Supergirl walked towards Ivy’s fallen form. “That was pretty easy-” 

A jolt of electricity blasted between the heroes. Supergirl got into a ready stance and Bumblebee unbiggened. 

“Wazzup, cucks?” Livewire yelled as she jumped into the fight. “Metropolis’s number one literal shock jock is here to bail your hippy ass out.” 

“Oh,” Poison Ivy deadpanned, from the rubble, “Great.” 

  
  
  


Wonder Woman and Green Lantern cornered Catwoman and Star Sapphire in the European jewelry exhibit. Catwoman had just swiped a large diamond, and Star Sapphire was leaning against a wall, checking her phone. 

Wonder woman and Green Lantern tag teamed a fight against Catwoman, who didn’t manage to throw any counter attacks but she managed to keep the diamond away from the heroes. 

“Well, this is _claw_ sitivly sub-optimal,” Catwoman said as she brushed herself off and retreated back towards Star Sapphire. “Could I have a little help, _purr_ ease?”

“Pass,” Star Sapphire said. “Do I look like I care for material wealth?” 

“But- “ Catwoman dodged a sword swing and some green shackles, “Green Lantern’s here- isn’t she your _nya_ emesis?” 

“Only when H- the other Green Lantern’s around,” Sapphire said. She thumbed at her phone and chuckled, once. 

“Ugh,” Catwoman back-flipped out of range of her opponents. “Why do you even come with us if you’re _nya_ ot interested in crime?” 

Star Sapphire looked up from her phone. “Well, I figure you guys are so boring that the one time I _don’t_ show up will be the time you finally do something interesting." 

“Well if you want to keep hanging out with us," Catwoman deadpanned, "You’re going to have to help us fight the good guys.” 

Star Sapphire sighed in an exaggerated manner. “Fine. But you gotta show me love, first.” 

Catwoman blinked. “What?” 

“I get my power from love, and I’m not going to use _my_ love for _your_ heist,” Star Sapphire said, “So, show me what you love.” 

Catwoman made a face. “I, love diamonds?” She pulled out a giant diamond from her thief’s satchel and gestured at it. 

(Green Lantern asked Wonder Woman if they should try to swipe the Diamond back, but it was protocol among powered individuals to not interrupt either party if they were talking about their feelings.)

Star Sapphire blinked. “Really?“

“Yeah,” Catwoman said, “They're a girl’s best friend.” 

Wonder Woman chortled. “Truly your villainous mind is broken beyond repair.” 

Star Sapphire's expression flattened. She stared at the cat. “Prove it.” 

Catwoman scrunched her mouth, and then she sighed and she got on her knees and held out the Diamond in front of her. 

“I- I love you,” Catwoman said, to the diamond. Her cheeks tinted slightly. Then she glanced at her teammate. 

“Yawn,” stated Star Sapphire. She pantomimed yawning. 

“I- I do!” Catwoman said, she turned to the diamond in her hand, “Diamond, I- I k _nya_ ow you may never have noticed me, but I've loved you so dearly ever since I first saw you. M-maybe it’s too much to ask, that you might feel the same way?” 

Catwoman's face was bright red by the time she finished.

Green Lantern coughed, awkwardly. Wonder Woman merely nodded in acknowledgement. 

“Eh,” Star Sapphire said. “C minus. I’ll use an appropriately powerful blast.” 

And Star Sapphire raised her palm at the two nearby superheros and several pink clumps of amorphous plasmoid energy radially effervesced from her palm before coalescing into a brilliant ball of light that focused into a beam of uniform photons that roared against the heroes for three seconds before an ionized stream of rarified atmosphere collapsed and a concussive shockwave burst out, knocking the slightly crispy heroes to the ground.

Catwoman yelled out a thanks and a cat pun and the two villains left the room. 

Wonder Woman pulled herself and then Green Lantern out of the ensuing rubble. “Can’t you do something like that too?” She asked Green Lantern. 

“That would be unnecessarily destructive,” Green lantern said. "You know I'm a pacifist."

"Right." Wonder Woman said. She coughed. "That is very noble of you."

* * *

As these things usually went, each villain pair succeeded in the initial foray, only to be defeated later, once they grouped up during their getaway, because heros learn from their mistakes and being grouped up makes you more vulnerable to area attacks.

* * *

  
  
  
  


One day during lunch, Barbara was looking at her phone, after having gotten there early to claim her team's regular table, and also so she could start texting Harleen as soon as possible. 

Barbara looked up to see Diana join Jessica, Kara, and Zee at her cafeteria table. A glance at the food tables told Barbara that Karen was in the line for pudding.

"Still texting your friend, I see?" Jessica said.

"No, actually," Barbara said. She frowned. "She hasn't responded for a few days. Not even to my exquisitely pruned collection of Pokemon meme mashups.” Her favorite was still the old ones of Pokemon in Lady Gaga wigs with the caption 'cant read my Poke face'.

(Diana asked Zee what Pokemon were, and Zee figured Karen would be better equipped to explain that.)

Barbara winced at her phone. “I don't know if it'd be annoying to, keep asking her? I'm sure I'd find out if she was actually in trouble, like, on her Facebook or something, but like, if her wifi router just got fried or something and she had a big test to study for anyway, I know she wouldn't want me to worry over her and if it was me I’d probably be kinda annoyed if I was being interrupted while I needed to get some shizz done."

“But if her wifi router got fried, that wouldn’t affect her phone, though?” Jessica ventured. 

Barbara's mouth imploded into a frown, "I- I mean, sure, that particular instance has some workarounds, but there’s probably a bunch of normal things it could be that I just can’t think of right now, since I live continuously and perpetually in the internet quagmire and can’t imagine losing connectivity for any extended period of time....” 

Diana blinked. 

There were a few moments of awkward silence where the occasional scraping of silverware on cafeteria trays mingled with the ambient white noise chatter of the cafeteria.

Diana cleared her throat. "In the time since you brought it up, I've been thinking more about it, and I have noticed some of these differences between boys and girls you have mentioned," she said. 

Barbara looked up from her phone, but she let her other friends carry on the distraction from her phone.

"Oh," Zee said, "like what?

"Well, 'boys' use slightly harsher perfumes than non-boys." Diana said.

"Cologne," Barbara said, idly.

“Boys don’t seem to wear hair accessories,” Diana said. 

“Yeah, that’s pretty true,” Jessica said. 

Diana smiled to herself. “I thought it was a hair length thing, but sometimes I see humans with short hair and hair accessories.” 

By this time Karen arrived at the lunch table, and Barbara had slowly drifted back into her phone. 

“Well, short hair is easier to maintain,” Zee said. She ran her hand through her own cascade of beautiful purple hair for effect, “So if you see someone with long hair, regardless of whether they’re a boy or a girl, it’s because they want and can devote the time to it.”

Diana nodded. "And I only see a few boys in skirts." she said.

Karen choked on her chocolate milk, just a bit. 

"You’re saying you’ve seen boys in skirts?” Jessica asked. 

"Yeah-” Diana said, “Look at Susan, over there, right now- “ she pointed. 

"Susan is a girl.” Zee said. 

Diana tilted her head to the side. "I thought 'Boys' were what you call your varieties of persons with smaller breasts and wider shoulders?"

Jessica, Zee and Karen blushed, slightly. Kara became very interested in her peas and meatloaf.

"Well, we did tell you its a-, what was it you said?" Zee turned to Barbara, "a 'confluence of social and cultural factors'?” 

"Susan has short hair," Diana stated. Her brow furrowed.

"Its called a 'pixie cut', which is a girl's hair style," Zee said.

“I have never seen Susan wearing hair accessories.” Diana said. She scrunched her mouth to the side.

“Well, to be fair, that’s a pretty optional part of the, cultural thing.” Jessica said. 

"Well, I see I still have much to learn about the human world," Diana stated. 

“You’ve been rather silent, Kara,” Karen said, to try to change the subject. 

“No, yeah,” Kara said. “We had gender differences back on Krypton, I just don’t know if they’re the same on earth….” She sipped her milk.

Zee smirked. “So we should chat at a helpful volume?” 

Kara made a noncommittal affirmative noise and lightly bopped Zee's shoulder. “Besides, Barbara hasn’t said much either.” 

“What no I’m paying attention,” Barbara said to her phone. "Pixie cuts usually hug the shape of the head which brings out your facial features, I think-"

Diana waved the air. “Anyway, the last thing I noticed that was almost always true, is that 'boys' need less care when I reject them.” 

Karen choked on her food, and needed Jessica to help her. Barbara looked up from her phone.

“Wait, what?” Zee said. 

Diana cut her meatloaf with her fork. “It’s similar to Amazonians, actually, but I learned what to do for human girls pretty quick-"

“No, you mean,” Zee said again, “You’re, getting propositioned?"

Diana blinked. “Yes? Almost once a week I get a letter in my shoe locker asking for a confrontation, which is usually an in person love confession on the roof,” She tilted her head to the side. “Does that not happen with you?” 

“Uh,” Jessica and Karen said, at the same time. There was a chorus of blinking, even from Barbara. 

“For me it’s just,” Kara said. She waved the air. “They’ll go up to me when we’re at a concert or the skate park and be all ‘hey do you want to hang out?’. And It turns out, that’s code for ‘trying to date’.” 

Karen sunk into her sweater. “Oh, that’s, cool.” 

“Yes, I usually am approached directly as well,” Zee said, “But by a different sort of boys, in a different manner and context, of course.” 

"The boys- and the other girls, who interact with each other," Jessica said, quickly, " in the environmentalist clubs seem to think that hanging out during club was enough interaction to cover 'dating'. Which is good for me, since if everyone who was there just to hookup decided to go on dates instead we wouldn't have enough members to qualify as a club." 

Then her brow furrowed.

"It was the same in band, I think," Karen said, "at least, that's what it looked like, back when I was still in it…"

And then Barbara’s phone vibrated. She had a text from an unfamiliar number. 

  
-hello, is this Barbara Gordon? Are you Harleen's friend?

Barbara blinked, and started typing, frenzied. 

Yeah, what’s up? Who is this?-

Barbara stared at the typing notification dots, transfixed. 

(“So what do you do about these love letters?”)

(“Well, of course I cannot accept them. I meet the admirer at the place and time they chose, and it’s usually at the roof-)

-I’m Pamela. Umm, I’m kind of worried about her

Barbara appreciated that whoever was texting her was self-conscious enough to manually type out the ‘um’, but also wondered why she didn't bother to type any punctuation at the end of their texts.

Oh no- Did something happen? Do you know where she is?-

(“- And I politely inform them that I have other priorities and cannot enter a relationship.” )

(“And, boys and girls react differently?”)

(“I mean that makes sense to me so I believe you, but give us the details-”)

-Oh, she's still here in school, it's just 

And that damnable ‘someone is typing’ indicator flashed for three eternities stacked on top of each other-

(“Usually the ‘boys’ accept the explanation. A lot of them seem relieved. 

(“Sometimes I have to also tell them that they will inevitably be disappointed if they are expecting a relationship, but I always have to do that for your mortal girls.)

-Umm, do, you think you could talk to her, maybe?

Barbara knew that Pamela probably meant, like, trying to stop by after school, when she next had free time, but heroes always did what was needed.

"Girls, cover for me,” Barbara said. 

“And it’s- wait, what-?” Diana said. 

Barbara mushed her peas and meatloaf together on her tray, and then mushed the already mushy mess into her mouth. “Ahm mddrrm rm grmm rm gmrmrmghrn rrmm mprm.” 

There was a chorus of blinking. 

Barbara swallowed the entirety of her lunch and drained her milk carton to wash it down. She pounded her chest twice. “Harleen’s having a friendship emergency, so I'm going to go talk to her.” 

“Right now?” Jessica said. 

"Right _now_." Kara stated, incredulously.

“Doesn’t she live all the way in Gotham?” Zee said. 

“Yeah, but that’s not all that far away physically,” Barbara said. She finished off the last scrapings of food on her lunch tray, “It’s more the traffic and the river crossing, which is no match for the ingenuity and determination of a superhero.” 

Diana scrunched her mouth to the side. “Well, if it is for the sake of Friendship, I suppose your attempt to escape your legally mandated schooling system is noble. We will cover up this for you in a solid manner.” 

“Funny enough, ‘cover up’ is its own idiom that means something similar but distinctly different,” Barbara said as she walked away from the table just slow enough to avoid getting yelled at by the teachers, “And its ‘do a solid’, as a noun.” 

  
  


* * *

Getting across the tri-state area to Gotham high wasn’t very hard for a superhero, even one on a scooter, and Barbara usually could just pretend to be a very young looking courier, since people in that profession were always taking ridiculous, dangerous shortcuts around the urban centers. She arrived before their lunch period was over. 

And sneaking into school wasn’t that hard either, since she could just pretend to be a student. It only took her a few moments to search Gotham’s public databases to find all the ‘Pamela’s that went to the same school as Harleen and as luck would have it, there was one school newspaper photo of Harleen standing next to one Pamela, which made her a good first candidate to investigate first.

Barbara tracked down the first Pamela, as she was rummaging through her locker. She had a potted plant tucked in the nook of her left elbow. She was a redhead girl wearing no makeup, long baggy pants and a T shirt with a long sleeved olive hoodie; the mark of someone deliberately ostracizing themselves from broader society. Considering Barbara’s experience with school in general and Gotham high in particular, Barbara couldn’t really blame her.

Barbara sent a text reply to the number that had texted her a half hour ago, and right after the Pamela in front of her checked her phone and started typing a reply, and when she put her phone away Barbara’s phone buzzed. Of course, that could have been a coincidence, but if it was it was just an awkward apology and Barbara’d go for the next lead.

So, it was probably fine to take a little bit of a risk. Barbara snuck up behind Pamela. 

"Boo!" Barbara yelled. She waved her arms like a muppet. 

"Ahhh-" screamed Pamela. She flinched and turned and dropped her schoolbooks and plant. She caught the plant, though (and Barbara was prepared to go for it too, in order to engender trust with a stranger by helping them out of a situation you admittedly put them in), which meant that Pamela wasn’t as unathletic as she looked. She hugged her plant to her chest, protectively, and glared at Barbara with bared teeth.

Barbara gathered up Pamela’s books, though, since Pam herself didn’t seem concerned with her books.

"I'm Barbara,” Barbara said. 

Pamela relaxed, a bit. “Oh, okay. I can see how you’re friends with Harleen.” She tilted her head to the side. “Um, aren't you supposed to be in school? In Metropolis?” 

Barbara waved the air. “Friendship is more important. And I needed to scope out the situation,” she said, “What’s up with her?” 

“Well, she um,” Pamela said, “She hasn’t shown up to club for a few days, and she hasn’t, smiled, the last time we hung out…” 

(Idly, subconsciously, Barbara had some conflicted feelings about how Harleen had apparently found a new friend that Barbara had never heard about. But, consciously, Barbara was happy that her friend was also making new friends, and Diana’s speech about Friendship not diminishing when shared reverberated, half-remembered, against her skull.)

“And I think she’s currently eating her lunch alone outside.” Pamela said, as a finisher. She looked down and to the side so her hair covered up more of her face.

“Well, that is concerning,” Barbara said. “We’ll have to go see what that’s about.” She grabbed Pamela’s hand and started marching to the school exit.

“What- no I,” Pamela said. She bit her lip.

Barbara paused.

“I mean, I’m not like,” Pamela said, to the ground, “The kind of friend that would, try to, talk to her about feelings….”

“C’mon, you cared enough to contact me,” Barbara said, “So you should be fine talking to her directly?”

“Um.” Pamela said. She idly fidgeted with her potted plant.

Barbara stopped. She tilted her head to the side. “So is this a situation where you don't actually want to do it, or you want to be convinced to do it?"

“Um,” Pamela said. She turned to her potted plant.

Barbara tried to remember the last time Harleen talked about, what was it, performative shyness or something? Or, people who are actually shy but don't want to be? And how that was distinct from actual introverted people, but introverted people didn't not like social interaction, they just needed to recharge between bouts of social interaction, or something? It was Harles who was the psych major. 

"I'm going to tug on your arm, lightly, but not hard enough to actually keep you from leaving," Barbara said, "So you can pretend I'm making you do it.

"...thanks..." Pam said, to the wall.

Harleen was indeed on a bench outside, almost in view of the field poking her school lunch idly.

Harleen blinked, and then she smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. “Wheaallll, Ah down’t know what’s more surprising: that Barb apparently ditched school ta come here, or that Pam decided to sit with me for a change."

Pam made some noncommittal noises, at her lunch.

"Well, girl, you haven't answered my texts, discords, telegrams, or tumblr shares for three days," Barbara said.

“Oh,” Harleen said. She bit her lip and looked into the distance. “I, lost my phone…”

Barbara refreshed her smile. “Oh? And did you, also, lose your laptop?"

“Well, ah guess ah haven’t been feeling too social, lately... “

Barbara frowned. “You could have told me if you were feeling down."

Harleen shrugged. “I dunno, it’s a little weird to tell people you don't have the energy to talk, since you need energy to actually talk enough to do that."

"Buut, you love talking," Barbara said, "And I'm sure I could cheer you up, with whatever is going on?”

Possibly in order to disprove Barbara’s point, Harleen only shrugged.

Barbara coughed. 

"You're getting a new one, though?" Barbara said. “A phone, I mean.” 

Harleen nodded. "Oh, yeah, definitely. My phone is like my life, so I’ve been feeling incomplete, like-” she pontificated, “Like some pop culture reference that I can’t think of, because I don’t have my phone to look one up on.” 

Barbara chuckled. "I’d try to come up with one, but best I can offer is, maybe, dementors?” 

Harleen chuckled. “Nah, ah don’t feel, empty. Just,” she pontificated, “latently bored? I guess it’s cool to look at things in real life, though, instead of on a screen, for a change.” 

“Oh?” Barbara said. 

“Yeah, check out these HD graphics on the city skyscrapers,” Harleen said, pointing at the view of Gotham visible from beyond the school premises. “And with natural lighting, too.” 

Barbara chuckled, but couldn’t think of anything to add to that riff. “Well, like, do you want to hit up the mall after school, and we can stop by the electronics store? I can spot you the down payment if you want."

Harleen looked panicked. "N-no, he's already going to replace it. It's fine."

Barbara tilted her head to the side. "You, mean, Arthur?"

Harleen made a smile with the left half of her face. "Its just, taking him some time to scrounge up the money, and he really wants to make it right."

"Did Arthur bre- lose your phone?" Barbara said, cautiously.

Harleen tried to look normal but it didn’t quite take. “It was an accident! And he's really sorry."

Barbara looked at Harleen's smile, and then at Pam, who was suddenly very interested in stroking the leaves of her plant. 

"Are you okay?" Barbara said, "Like, in general?” 

"Yes! I mean, maybe I'm a little, out of it, but its all fine." Harleen refreshed her smile.

Barbara decided that she should trust her best friend, but she'd file this away as a potential red flag if any more of them showed up. 

There was some awkward silence.

"Well, then, we should go to the mall tonight anyway,” Barbara said, “It’ll cheer you up.” 

"Nahhh, I'm, I’m good.” Harleen said. 

"C'mooonnnn," Barbara said, “Pam wants to gooo~” 

Pamela sputtered on her protein shake. “I- what- I-” she coughed, “I, have never been to a mall-”

“Whaaaaaa~” Barbara said. She clutched her face. 

("And its 'Pamela'-") 

Harleen looked surprised. “Well, now we _have_ to go, if its your first time.” 

Barbara pumped her fist in victory. 

“I, didn’t say I _would_ -” Pamela tried to say.

Harleen pouted exaggeratedly. “Looks like you win this time, Barb.” 

“C’mon, you’ll have a good tiiimme~" Barbara said.

And Harleen’s face flattened into a frown, suddenly. “I said I was fine before, ya know?”

"Well, yeah but-"

“I mean, is this your hero complex or latent guilt at leaving your oldest friend at a different school?" Harleen said.

Barbara wasn’t going to hold that against her friend, and sometimes taking to someone who liked psychology would mean they'd occasionally try to weaponize that if they were feeling hurt or sad, and Harles seemed to be both right now.

“You're my friend, Harleen," Barbara said, "Come Hell or high water, I'll, be here to cheer you up-"

"Wehll maybe I'm okay, _not_ , being cheered up."

“I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, just, talk to me about something,” Barbara said. “Like- is that _really_ Pam’s lunch?” She pointed to what appeared to be a few slices of cooked Spam, some hard boiled eggs, a few strips of bacon and some beef jerky.

Pamela frowned. "It's 'Pamela'," she said.

"Or 'Pammy'," Harleen said.

Pamela frowned harder. "It is most definitely not," She growled.

"Or 'Pam-pam'," Harleen said, through a grin that infected the right half of her face. Barbara chuckled.

Pamela tried to grab Harleen's head but Harleen intercepted Pamela's wrists and effortlessly held them in the air. She laughed as Pamela struggled to escape. (Harleen did gymnastics and from what Barbara could tell from their brief interactions, maybe Barbara had overestimated how athletic Pamela seemed when she first caught her falling plant.)

Harleen then released Pamela to go sulk and mumble something to her plant. 

Harleen leaned towards Barbara. "Usually she's about this angry, so its good she’s back to normal,” she said, in an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper that she meant Pamela to overhear.

Pamela frowned again. "Y-yes, this is my lunch," she said, to change the subject. "I only eat meat."

Barbara looked at the plant in the pot next to Pamela, "Because, you love plants?"

"Barb's gonna go into forensic science, so she’ll pick up on things like that,” Harleen said to Pam in an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper.

"Well you don't need to be a great detective to figure that out,” Pam said. 

"Yeah, Pam-Pam brings that plant around in performative misanthropy so she doesn’t get bothered by the riff-raff.” Harleen said. She waved the air. 

Pamela frowned at ‘Pam-Pam’, and hugged the plant to her chest, defensively, "N-no~!" she growled, angrily, "Vyrgyl was just lonely today and they wanted company." 

“Ooo, I think you made her mad~" Barbara said. "Maybe _you_ should cheer _Pam_ up with a joke or something?"

“It’s ‘Pamela’-”

Harleen looked thoughtful, for a moment. “You know, sure."

And in retrospect, that made sense: Harles liked psychology because she wanted to be a psychologist, to help people. Barbara decided to pretend she had always planned to bring Pamela along as a necessary instrument in helping her friend.

“I'm -I'm good, actually-" Pamela began.

Harleen waved her hand over her mouth and put on her comedian smile. “So, you know about Koalas-” 

“Noooooooo,” Barbara said. She leaned back and to the left.

“Fiiiinneee,” Harleen said. She leaned back and to the right.

Pamela blinked.

Harleen coughed, and waved her hand over her mouth and refreshed her comedian smile. “So, Ah man makes a deal wid tha devil: His soul fer a magic bag.” 

"`Whenever you need something,` says the devil, `the money to buy it will be in the bag.`"

“Later, tha man goes back ta tha devil. `Hey devil, ah tried to buy some new shoes but the bag was empty.`”

“And the Devil says, `Did ya neeeeed new shoes?`"

Pamela chuckled. Harleen smiled.

“So ah man makes a deal wid tha devil; His soul fer a magic bag.”

“`Whenever ya want something,`says the devil, `the means to acquire it will be in the bag.`"

“The man goes to the shoe store ta buy some new shoes, and when tha time comes to pay, he reaches into the bag-”

“To find only a ski mask anna hand gun.”

Barbara cracked up, and Pamela let out some real laughs as well.

Harleen's smile widened, and grew to reach her eyes.

  
  
  



	2. Haircuts at the Mall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which girls get haircuts. Ivy's POV is explored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of these characters. They are properties of Direct Current 'DC' comics and their individual creators.
> 
> All of my mistakes are performance art. 
> 
> So it took only one chapter before I had people IRL and on the line come up to tell me about _all_ the complicated, nuanced lore behind all these pajama vigilantes, and then the nerd part of me got concerned about how the lore and powersets of each character would interact in a combat situation, even though I was hoping that writing a cracky fanfic for the official condensed highschool AU version of the DC super-heroines would absolve me from doing any of that. Oh well.
> 
> And, I admit I was trying to simultaneously humblebrag about my memory of random DC property snippits from over the years, and give cover for mixing in weird crack elements that may or may not gel with the actual DC lore and themes. I'm still gonna do that, though; heads up if thats not your cup of tea.
> 
> Thus, I guarentee no expertise in or even basic correct knowledge of: DC universe lore, Greek mythology, greco-roman history, malls, romance, molecular biology, agriculture, english grammar, weight lifting, or hair salons.

This was basically Ivy’s nightmare situation; getting literally dragged off by some miserable humans, to a dumb mall-

So that she and those dumb, miserable humans could 'socialize' and 'hang out' and partake in the excessive conspicuous idolatry of vapid pop culture trends and rampant consumerism that vomited forth from the discussing tax haven concrete scars upon the earth that were _malls_ \- 

Serves her right for caring about a human for once. At least Virgyl was here, and she could hum to the tree in the school playground, and there was some moss growing on the roof that the custodians hadn't yet scraped away that Ivy could, sort of, close her eyes and sense-

"So are we actually going to the mall?” Harleen asked, and for one brief moment Pamela hoped that, maybe Barbara would give up once she managed to get Harleen to smile.

"Yeah, definitely,” Barbara said. She held her elbow out towards Harleen and smiled. "There's always fun to be had at a mall! If you don't need a new phone _yet_ we can always just, go clothes shopping or get your hair done."

"Yeah, mah hair does need serious maintenance," Harleen said. She smiled similarly and hooked her own elbow out so they could, gavotte or something, "Now, it's just a matter of _which_ mall we're gonna go to-"

And the Harleen turned to her, and she somehow slid along the bench to press right up to Pamela’s side- “Anything in particular you want to do, Pam~me~la?” 

Pamela blinked. She tried to find a way to object to the way Harleen said her name, even though she did, this time, not use any stupid nicknames for her, before she realized she had a more important objection. 

Pamela looked at the hand outstretched to her. "I- I don't know if my mom will let me..."

"Well, call her!" Harleen said, "She seemed nice when ah met her." 

Not sure how much you could tell from three seconds conversation from a car window during that week Ivy's car needed maintenance.

"Um," Pamela said. She clutched Virgyl's pot and focused her metaphysical powers into feeling the plant. She briefly considered supercharging them in order to lay waste to everyone amd everything the immediate vicinity-

But, Harleen was her friend, and this Barbara girl seemed well-meaning enough, if no less misguided as all the other humans. 

"Do you _need_ to call her?" Barbara said, "Do you have a curfew or something?"

"Nah, she jus’ has ah good relationship with her mum and likes to keep her updated," Harleen said. She smirked. 

"Hey! I have a good relationship with _my_ dad!" Barbara said. She was smiling as she said it so maybe it wasn't as hostile as the words were normally construed to be. 

Pamela looked between the two humans, and she sighed and pulled out her phone and brought up her contacts list to one of 8 people in it and started a call.

She secretly hoped her mom would say no. That would make this easier-

"Hello, mother?" Pamela said, when the phone picked up. 

"Yes Pamela dear?"

"Some, friends," Pamela said. Sure, that was accurate enough during this call, "Invited me to hang out with them this afteroon-" 

"A wonderful occasion," mother said, "You have friends, now?" 

"Um, well, sort of-” 

"Its good to see you make friends. It's better than sitting around in your room with your plants all day."

Ivy grit her teeth. "I _like_ my plants, mother."

"But plants won't be there for you, or bail you out of trouble," her mother said, "which is the primary utility of friends. I am happy that you have started to make some.” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. In the few weeks she'd been part of Catwoman's stupid villain group thing, she'd found that plants were significantly more reliable than humans- powered or no- at bailing herself out of trouble.

"Do have a good time, sweetie," her mother stated, since Ivy was too concerned with brooding to answer-

"Wait-"

And the phone hung up.

Ivy stared at her phone's 'call ended' screen in dejection. 

Well, that was it, wasn't it? Now she _had_ to go to the mall-

That hideous edifice of mankind's hubris and consumerism-

She relayed that to the two humans but they somehow managed to convince her.

She allowed Stupid Harleen to drag her on the rail car that would take them-

"Wait," Ivy said, after they were already on a tram. "I have a car. I could have just driven us," she said.

Barbara didn't miss her stride. "Ehh, give yourself a break from driving! I know traffic's killer, and the Lexcorp air-rails between major commercial centers are significantly faster."

Ah, Lexcorp, the number one producer of industrial waste in the entire tri-state area- their research and development labs were all located near land that had been legally declassified as a protected land after they dumped enough chemicals over it to kill all the wildlife and most of the plants, and they try to cover up their public perception by building their consumerist concrete edifices of materialistic excess-

"It's an outdoor mall, though," Barbara said.

Ivy blinked. "What?" 

"You mumbled something about, 'concrete edifices of excess'," Barbara said. She was smiling. "But we thought a more environmentally conscious mall would suit you more, especially for your first time.”

Ivy blinked. "You- did that, for me…”

"Aww, of course, Pam-pam!" Harleen scootched next to her and put her arm around her shoulder.

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side, at the ground. "Thanks..." she managed to mumble. “But it’s still a, horrible monument to humanity's indolence,” she finished, half-heartedly.

“Oh totally," Harleen said. She waved an imaginary panorama with her hand, "We're gonna get indolent up the wazoo up in here.” 

Barbara chuckled. “Isn’t’ that redundant, though? ‘Up the wazoo’ and ‘up in here’ mean basically the same thing.” 

Harleen pantomimed thinking. “Nah, ah think ‘up in here’ refers to the fact that something _will_ happen, to us, and possibly literally in our location, while ‘up the wazoo’ refers to the degree in which the aforementioned thing is going to happen.”

“Well, they are both positive modifiers that reference the degree to which the first clause will happen, and they’re both used to express enthusiasm.” 

“Ah guess we can agree on that…” Harleen said, and then she changed the subject to something completely different. 

It was weird; Harleen and Barbara appeared to be arguing, most of the time when they talked, but they also appeared to be friends. The upshot was that meant Pamela didn’t have to think of anything to contribute to the conversation. 

* * *

They arrived at the outdoor mall. It was more green that Pamela expected it to be- the main courtyard was basically a big garden.

But that only masked the extend to which is was actually a terrible thing, see above rant. 

“So, what's first?” Barbara said, “Hair salon?"

“Ya, these highlights need serious maintenance,” Harleen said. She idly grabbed her right pigtail- red from a little more than halfway down it’s length.

"And- “ Barbara was now in front of her, smiling expectantly. Annoying. "It's cool to meet another redhead. Your hair is so pretty! How long have you been growing it out?”

S-stupid Barbara. 

Pamela looked at the ground. “Um, since, I can remember…” 

"Ooo- " Barbara said, to her phone, “I can get us some online coupons for that hair place, as long as its a party of three or more.” 

Pamela glanced at the ground. She could tell that both Barbara and Harleen were looking at her.

But, they didn't say anything, so it looked like Pamela had to verbally respond what must have been obvious.

Pamela grit her teeth. “I do not need such frivolities-” 

Harleen tilted her whole upper half of her body to the side. “c'mooonnn Paaaammm~”

Pamela grit her teeth. “I- there’s- chemicals and stuff, in the hair stuff…"

"Actually, they have ones that are organic," Barbara said, pointing at one of the advertisements in the window of the hair boutique. 

“I-” Pamela clutched her hair defensively, "I don't want my hair cut…."

"Straight hair looks good if its short," Barbara insisted.

Pamela hissed. 

“But you can also just ask them to trim the split ends and give it a wash,” Harleen said. 

Pamela scrunched her mouth. Again with people telling her to wash her hair. That was the third time that day. She actually thought it had a nice earthy smell to it, and the plant sheddings that had found their way into it smelled much nicer than what passed for perfume among high schoolers. 

But washing was, nominally, a natural process, so maybe she could, like, join these people for some vainglorious hair care….  
  
Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. "I, can pay for myself-”

"Nah, it's my treat!" Barbara said, "to like, sweeten the deal for hanging out with us.” 

Pamela looked at the floor. Well, at least Barbara was a little self-aware about how annoying she was. 

“I- fine,” Pamela mumbled, to the floor. 

* * *

And Pamela found herself being escorted to this, medical looking chair, with a fancy plastic bucket behind it. She unsuccessfully fought an attendant who ended up taking Vyrgyl to the counter. 

And a beautician tried to hide a nose crinkle and a wince as Pamela sat down and allowed her head to be tilted back as she closed her eyes and braced for the cold of running water. 

The sound of the sink drowned out most of the ambient conversation. They combed her hair as they washed it, and the tangle of hair was groomed until the humans considered it presentable. 

* * *

And then it was time for Pamela to get the ends of her hair trimmed. She took a seat in a barber’s chair as a stylist put a smock around her neck and then started making light cuts around the edges of her hair. They assured her that it wouldn’t shorten her hair all too much.

"I'm just saying, if the demons looked, like, homeless people, that'd be fine," Harleen said, from her chair, to the left of Pamela, while she was having her own hair treated. "But they were also all covered in gross slime and had frogs on their heads. Like, why would they do that?” 

"That’s because demons are supposed to be grotesque," Barbara said, from the opposite side of Harleen. “They were trying to be accurate to, well, the original intent.”

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. The hairdresser complimented her hair, but Pamela didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t. 

"Yeah, but the angels didn’t look, like, flaming wheels with six eyes or anything," Harleen said. “And I'm not saying I wanted them to be just color inverted from the angels. The demons could be grungy, or be wearing tattered suits and stuff.”

“I think you’ve been watching too much _Lucifer_ and- “ Barbara paused, but Pamela didn’t dare turn her head to see if she was waved the air or not, “other, shows, about cool, sexy demons. Did _Supernatural_ have cool sexy demons?” 

"Arguably?" Harleen said. 

“And what, you don’t think that having frogs and slime on your head is cool?” Barbara said. “Sounds like yooouuu need to reassess your aesthetic preferences~”

“But the show itself was trying to suggest that headfrogs and slime was gross, since Crowley wasn’t covered in slime at all.” 

“He was the sympathetic demon. He had angelic elements to his whole aesthetic.”

“But Aziriphale as the Angel with demonic elements wasn’t, like, smudged with soot or anything.,” Harleen argued. “There’s clear bias towards the angel side.” 

“Well, okay, you didn’t like the aesthetic implications,” Barbara conceded. It seemed that Harleen won most of these arguments, at least as far as Pamela could tell, “Did you at least like the show?”

“Oh, yeah, it was a good suggestion for a watch,” Harleen said, “But not because the plot was good. It was a blast, just, watching Michael Sheen and David Tennant flirt throughout history, though.” 

“Yeah, I like that expansion from the book.”

“Psh, _nerd_ , reading the book of the shows we watch.” Harleen blew a raspberry.

“Hey, at least I get to know how they end before we watch them,” Barbara said, and she stuck her own tongue out. 

And Harleen and Barbara started discussing the merits of reading until the end of their hair appointment. 

* * *

Pamela couldn’t tell if her hair was in any way better. It was a little shorter- mostly at the back since sleeping on your back made the hair there more tangled- and she figured most of the reason humans went to salons was, like, how they made you feel more beautiful or whatever.

“And, of course, we’re gonna get makeovers,” Barbara said. 

Pamela froze. 

“What?” she said. 

“Well, sort of; what we can do is get our makeup done by one of the clerks in the makeup store,” Barbara said. “It’s one of the cool things about the outlet stores in that brand do- have high-quality customer service even though the products are within the price range of, like, high-schoolers.” 

Pamela reflexively clutched the pot Vyrgyl was in as hard as she could. 

“I-” Pamela said, “I, don’t-” 

Barbara stepped up into her face. “I think you’d look really good if you, covered up your eye bags and maybe make your eyes pop a little more?” Barbara said, “They already look pretty big, so you could just, go, whole hog with some eyeliner and just, make them -” 

Pamela heard herself squeak in an embarrassingly uncomposed way.

“I- ah- erk-” she managed to say.

And she took a breath-

And another one-

And-

Then there was a soft pressure around her head- 

Because Harleen had the audacity to actually hug her head, the _miserable human_ -

“Shhhhhh-sshh-sshh,” Harleen soothed, as she continued 

And Pamela was about to protest literally everything about the situation and also everything in the world-

“It’s okay- sorry to pressure you-” soothed Harleen. She made a smile. 

Pamela managed to resist the urge to growl. Or, maybe she just, was too mortified to actually do anything.

“It’s been hard for you too, right?"

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. It was annoying that it was that obvious. 

Harleen held Pamela at arms length. “So, how about, you sit out here for a bit while Barb and I play around in the make up store?”

Pamela found she could only nod. 

Barbara smiled a smile that was also a grimace. “Ah- Sorry, I didn’t realize this was going to be, something you weren't comfortable with..." 

Harleen pushed Barbara away, into the store, while presumably explaining to her friend that Pamela was some weirdo who couldn't go out in public-

* * *

And Pamela was alone, again, at last.

Well, alone in the people sense. She still had Vyrgyl with her, and she could sense the potted plants around. Their presence was a comfort. 

See it was like, _Pamela_ didn’t want to be pretty. She couldn’t tell Harleen or Barbara that, though.

What did it mean, if she allowed her human part to be be pretty, or popular, or successful? Especially when so much of what it meant to be human was completely antithetical to- to everything Ivy was, what she was supposed to be-

And besides; as long as she didn’t try, she could always blame not being - not being everything she wanted to be - on the lack of effort, and she’d never have to face the possibility that maybe she just, never could be the avenging plant goddess that she was meant to be.

And Harleen would say, knowing something is an excuse and not doing anything about it isn’t any better than not knowing you were making an excuse, so Pamela vowed to, maybe, make a bit more effort the next time she went out as Ivy. That made it okay that she was making an excuse _now._

* * *

In retrospect, it wasn’t, so bad, sitting around on a bench in what was basically a park ringed by shops. 

Harleen came back with- eye wings? That was what they were called, right? And some expertly applied eyeshadow, and Barbara had on a bright pinkish-reddish-purpleish shade of lipstick. 

“You’re such a good person, Babsy,” Pamela overheard Harleen say as they walked out of the store, “Purchasing nail polish you don’t intend to use just because you felt guilty."

“I mean, I could use it, someday, maybe,” Barbara said. Her head was sunk into her shoulders, a little. “And, are you telling me that you don’t even feel a little bad about just getting free makeovers?”

“Ah’m telling ya, tha clerk’s don’t get paid on commission,” She said, “And there’s a good chance any given millennial is skeptical enough of large corporations that they don’t mind and would actually help you get free stuff from them-” 

Pamela inhaled and exhaled. “You girls look nice,” she successfully said. She made a smile. 

“Aww, thanks Pam!” Harleen said. She smiled. “Did you feel guilty at causing a scene and also having a moment to calm down put things into perspective so you’re trying to overcompensate by being uncharacteristically nice?”

Pamela’s face flushed. “N-no~~”

Barbara laughed. She walked up to them. “Classic Harles, amirite? So, uh, can I buy you dinner? Cause, you know, feeling guilty and overcompensating by being nice.” 

Harleen swatted at Barbara’s face. Barbara retaliated and the two girls got into a what appeared to be a sparring match. 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. “You, don’t have to do that…”

“But Harles and I are also hungry, so, we're gonna get food." Barbara said, from the headlock Harleen had managed to place her in.

"I got a look at the food court and it looks all vegan," Pamela said. She almost retched at the though of all those poor plants getting shredded and chopped up into food. Miserable humans, just taking everything from nature-

"Well, it's actually kind of interesting to meet you, since most environmentally conscious people are vegans-” Barbara said. 

Pamela hissed, reflexively. 

“Buut,” Barbara said, tilting her head back and to the side, “There’s definitely, like, a chicken place? I know they have chicken sandwiches- Do you eat bread?” 

Pamela stuck her tongue out. “Grains are the seeds of plants, so, no.” She turned into the middle distance and shook her fist, half-clenched, “Every one of them could have sprouted into a complete, beautiful plant, but humanity’s gluttony has them culled on mass to-”

“En masse,” Barbara said, under her breath.

“- satisfy their relentless expansion and consumerism.” 

“Um, okay.” Barbara said. She shrugged. “I mean, it’s not, like, tooo different from people on the Atkins diet, I guess.” 

* * *

Pamela agreed to let Barbara pay for her dinner. Harleen went out to get an ice cream shake. 

Barbara led Pamela to the back of the line to Birdy-satava’s chicken shack.

“Oh, okay, I've eaten here before,” Pamela said to the big cartoon chicken in the monastic getup. 

“Ok, so, you want like, the pure chicken strips?” Barbara said. She pulled her wallet out of a pouch on her belt. 

“No,” Pamela said. She pointed to an advertisement with a small amount of nutritional information on it. “Their ‘pure’ chicken is pure in that it’s free from sin. It’s 20% tofu. I’ll take the 100% chicken strips.” 

“Ah, okay.” Barbara said. “And, a soda? Or only like the non-fruit sodas…?”

“Any soda usually has corn syrup in it,” Pamela stated. 

“Oh! Yeah. Well, just out of curiosity since they wouldn’t have it here, would you drink real sugar soda?”

Pamela’s expression flattened. “Sugar is derived from sugarcane. Which is is a plant.” 

“Yeah, but, sugar itself is, a crystal?”

“It’s an organic compound.” 

“But like, would you eat synthetic sugar?” 

Pamela shrugged. “I dunno. I mean, would a vegetarian eat vat-cultured meat patties?”

Barbara tilted her head back and tapped her chin. “You know, I think that will vary from person to person, but I do know a vegan I can ask- I could even introduce you sometime.” 

Pamela frowned. “Oh, great, a plant eater.” 

“No no- I mean, she’s also big on the environment,” Barbara said. She waved her hands 

Pamela decide not to digress into a rant about how most so called ‘environmentalists’ weren’t willing to try to affect meaningful change in Humanity's relationship with nature. 

“Well, I gueesssss I don’t need to think about that now,” Barbara said. “So, uh- do you drink milkshakes?” 

“I eat dairy, but most desserts use either chocolate or vanilla, which are beans.” Pamela said. 

“So, if there was, like, unsweetened Horchata or something?”

“Horchata by definition contains cinnamon, which is a plant,” Pamela deadpanned.

“Oh, dang, yeah, that’s right.” Barbara nodded. The line moved a little. “Your diet is pretty hardcore, huh?” 

Pamela looked at the ground. “I usually sustain myself from _revenge_. And a daily multivitamin.” 

Barbara chuckled. “But, wouldn't most vitamins be derived at least partially from plants?” 

“Well, until I fully evolve, I’m gonna have to make compromises,” Pamela said. “Like driving a car, or wearing cotton underwear, or plant-based vitamins.” 

“Oh! Yeah, I guess you’re not wearing leather and, like, post-apocalyptic animal skulls."

Pamela briefly entertained the idea of trying to put together an outfit like that, but she was not in any shape to pull off leather. 

“So, is your jacket…” Barbara pontificated. 

“It’s wool.” 

“Cool.” Barbara nodded three times. “It looks comfy.”

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. “It is.” 

And Barbara seemed to run out of probing questions by that point, since she didn’t try to restart the conversation until they got their food. 

* * *

And thankfully Harleen took the brunt of conversation with Barbara once they rejoined for dinner. 

* * *

And after that, it was finally time to part ways. The skyrail to Metropolis was in a different direction, and Barbara and Harleen were sharing a long hug before they’d go their separate ways.

“It was nice to meet you, Pamela!” Barbara said. 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side and looked at the ground. “Sure.” 

“I mean it! And it’s cool that Harles is making friends in her- what club did you say you were both in, again?” 

Harleen froze. She glanced at Pamela, but like, Pamela wasn’t going to be able to say anything to help.

“Oh, you know,” Harleen said. She waved the air, “it’s, a secret club~~~” 

“Ooooo~ Do teelll~~” Barbara smiled widely and tilted her whole body to the side.

“Nooooooo~~” Harleen also smiled widely and she tilted her whole body to the other side.

“Teeellll meee~~~” 

Harleen sighed. “Fine. It’s a brony club.”

Barbara froze. Pamela also froze, but she wasn’t always bouncing off the walls so it was a less dramatic change. 

“Oh,” Barbara said. “Is that, still, a thing?”

“Yeah!” Harleen jumped over to put an arm around Barbara’s shoulders, “ninth season, but never to late to get into it~~”

“ehhh…”

“C’moon, I can just give you a list of the highlight episodes to get you caught up.” 

“Eeeeehhhhhhh...” 

“C’moooon, you sure?” Harleen put on her widest smile. 

“Yeeeaaahh,” Barbara said. “Well, to avoid the risk of getting into an infinite loop of extended goodbyes, Ima get on the rail to home now. Byee~~” 

“Byyyyeeeee~~” Harleen said. 

* * *

And Barbara left, out of eyesight. Pamela loosened her grip on Vyrgyl’s pot. 

Pamela turned to Harleen. “Nice cover story.” 

Harleen smiled. “I thought so too! And ima need _you_ to watch all those highlight episodes so we can maintain the cover story-” 

Pamela clutched Virgyls pot and focused her metaphysical powers into feeling the plant. She briefly considered supercharging them in order to lay waste to everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity….

  
  
  


* * *

The next day, during lunch, Barbara had gotten to lunch early to claim her team's regular table, because it was becoming a habit at this point. Kara was keeping Jessica company as the vegan of the group waited in line for vegan creamless ice cream.  
  
Diana joined her first, along with Karen and Zee. 

"How did things work out with Harleen?" Karen asked. 

“Oh,” Barbara began. She looked up from her phone, “She, was inexplicably sad," she said. She frowned and realized that she never actually did ask Harleen what exactly got her so down yesterday - it wasn’t the first time she lost her phone, right? Or, maybe non superheros put more value onto their material goods, since you didn’t implicitly accept that there was a nonzero chance they’d get fried in an explosion or eaten by a mutant alligator or just dropped when you're swinging between alleys, any given day.

Barbara refreshed her smile. “But we managed to cheer her up, I think, by going to the mall.” 

Diana tilted her head to the side. “‘We’?” she said, “is this, another weird human pronoun thing?” 

“Oh!” Barbara laughed, once, “No, ah, it turns out, she’s already made a new friend, and we teamed up to cheer her up! Like, on top of the boyfriend, it seems like she’s social enough without me,” Barbara said. She looked back at her phone. “Which is why it’s important for me to not lose touch with her-” 

“Actually, where’s Jessica? I think she’d like Harleen's new friend,” Barbara glanced over at the cafeteria tables. “And I was going to ask her something about vat-meat, I think?”

“Italian ice is popular with non-vegans too, so she’s gonna be in that line forever,” Zee said. 

Karen glanced at the ground. “You, mentioned you went to the Mall?” 

“Oh! Yeah, we, did,” Barbara parsed. She performatively put her phone on the table and turned to Karen. “I know its been a while since we all went to the mall, but we hang out at the lair a lot. Like, when our schedules match up-” She refreshed her smile, “Hey, how about we all go to the mall this weekend?” 

“I can make that,” Zee said.

“I am ‘down for it’,” Diana said. She tilted her head to the side. “Or should I have said, ‘I am up for it’?” 

“Funny enough, those are interchangeable colloquialisms,” Barbara said. 

Diana scrunched her mouth to the side before she sighed. “Your language is confusing, but I will endeavor to remember that.” 

Karen looked up and smiled. “I- uh, well, everyone already said they can make it, so, yeah, that sounds fun, but you, didn’t need to do that just for my sake.” 

"Naaah, its no problem! And it'll be fun!" Barbara said.

Kara and Jessica joined them by this time.

"Anyway, I managed to contact my mother about Storks," Diana said, and she impaled some broccoli on her fork. 

Barbara coughed. "Oh? And, what did she say…?”

Karen smushed her lips together and became very interested in her mac and cheese. Zee was better at appearing composed. 

"Well, I was right," Diana said. She stood up straight and smirked in triumph, "But, you were also right. She admitted that some of the details she felt were necessary for a child to know, so in recognition of my coming of age she divulged to me the complete story of how babies are made. See, it begins when two adults with to continue their lineage-” 

Karen choked on her chocolate milk, just a bit. 

"No no, it's, okay, you don’t have to tell us-" Zee began.

Diana closed her eyes and refreshed her posture as she continued reciting. “And they contact the Stork, who combines their blood into a wriggling flesh pupae via a hideous antediluvian ritual, and implant it in the gestational parent’s abdomen.” 

Jessica opened her mouth, presumably to ask what was going on, but she didn’t get the chance to talk. 

“Therein the baby grows for nine months, before being cut out or otherwise extracted,” Diana said. "This is where cesarean scars come from, and why babies cry when they are born, because creating life is a blasphemy, and why they don’t develop self-awareness until three years old, because that is how long it takes the dark magic to dissipate.”

There was a less pronounced chorus of blinking. 

Barbara looked around. “That’s, interesting. Ah-” 

Kara continued to eat her food. "Krypton was like that too, except it was the central difference engine rather than some weird magic thing.” 

There was another chorus of blinking. 

Barbara opened her mouth, then closed her mouth. “But, wait, Diana,” she said, “You mentioned you were formed from clay, I think?” 

Diana nodded, sagely. “Yes, I specifically was formed from clay, by my mother alone, and I was then blessed by Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite into life.” 

“Were other Amazonians born that way?” 

Diana tilted her head up and to the side and scrunched the left half of her mouth. “Possibly, but the circumstances of my birth were to fulfill some kind of prophecy or something, which is why mine was different,” She said. She ate a piece of broccoli. 

“You were part of a prophecy?” Jessica asked. 

Diana nodded. She gestured with her fork, which had a piece of broccoli on it. “I am the Godkiller, created to potentially kill the divine enemies of Themiscrya.” 

“Diana ‘Godkiller’ Prince kind has a cool ring to it,” Barbara said.

“Why not use that as your superhero name, instead of ‘Wonder Woman’,” Zee said. She had been talking about rebranding on and off for a few days, by now. 

Diana frowned. “I hope I can resolve the relevant issues to my superhero status without resorting to murder."

“So, wait, you’re gonna have to kill some gods?” Kara said. “Is there a divine war or something?”

Diana refreshed her neutral, expository look. “Not as such. Several of the other gods have domains and doctrines that are in opposition to those of Themiscrya, but our primary enemy is Zeus, ever since she turned into a duck and seduced Atermis’ girlfriend,” Diana said. She turned into the middle distance and shook her fist, half-clenched, and she vowed revenge on behalf of her people and her culture. 

Diana turned back to the group. She tilted her head to the side. “I also think there might be a prophecy involving a Greek warrior siring Loki and indirectly causing Ragnarok, which I may or may not qualify for.”

Diana scrunched her mouth to the side. “And I also, one time, accidentally killed one of the Japanese gods, but she got better.” 

Zee opened her mouth, but nothing came out, so she closed it. Barbara understood that feeling, even if she was better at overcoming it. Like, right now:

“So is Zeus, a Man in your cosmology?” Barbara asked.

Diana furrowed her brow and frowned. “No, she is a God. I think sometimes Men can become gods, but I don’t think that applies to Zeus.”

“No, I mean,” Barbara pontificated ineffectually, “Is Zeus a boy, to the Amazons?” 

Diana blinked. “I’m pretty sure I would have heard about ‘boys’ before if the ancient Greeks had them.” She smirked and lightly bopped Barbara’s shoulder. “You are very comical, friend Barbara.” 

And Barbara opened her mouth, but nothing came out for three tries. “I’m, pretty sure the ancient Greeks did have boys, though.” 

“Ah,” Diana said. She smiled. “This is what you call ‘pushing on my leg’, is it not?”

“Pulling your leg,” Barbara said, reflexively, and Diana took that as admitting to the joke. 

* * *

"Girls, I am so sorry I’m late, " Batgirl said to her assembled team, after she grappling hooked onto the roof of the evil laboratory. It was evening, they were in the industrial sector of Metropolis, and crime was afoot.

“Harleen had something come up tonight so we accidentally wasted time apologizing to each other which then turned into a conversation about cartoons, but I’m here now, ready to fight Doctor Dinosaur and her army of terminators-" 

"Oh, you misread the text," Zatanna said. She pulled out her phone and showed the screen to Batgirl, "We're fighting Dr. Dina Saru, and the terminators aren’t an army." 

Batgirl squinted at Zatanna's phone and re-read what she had previously skimmed. 

"Was, 'Evil' -utionary biologist also a typo?" Barbara said.

"Actually, no, that's her official title.” Bumblebee said, “Apparently her lab allows employees to chose their job title and description.” 

"What about the terminators?” Batgirl said, “She was, injecting them into things?” 

Zatanna stepped forward. "Maybe if you listen to her megalomaniacal rant, you'll know-”

"Muwahahaha~" came a voice, over further into the laboratory.

Wonder Woman led the team to pose heroically on the laboratory perimeter, just within line of sight of their adversary.

"Give it up, Superhero Girls! You’ll never defeat the machinations of Me, Dr. Dina Saru!” An older scientist in the requisite lab coat pontificated theatrically in front of some lab equipment.

“For the last several years, the agricultural company I work for has had me develop terminator genes to splice into all of our high-yield environmentally efficient crop seeds, which we will sell to farmers all over the world, making their livelihood dependent on continuous financial obligation to our processing plants, and removing the means of self-sufficiency from farmers! Muwahahaha!”

Supergirl looked confused. Bumblebee hovered over to her ear. “There's different types, but typically a terminator gene sterilizes a plant so that its seeds can’t be used to plant a new generation of crops,” she explained to the member of their team that was least concerned with her education.

Dr. Dina Saru waved her arms. "And I don't know how to segue this into the rant, but we're also sitting on enough terminatored quinoa to feed the tri-state area for six months, but we're keeping it off the market in order to drive food prices up so we can make more money.” 

"Ookay, soooo," Batgirl said. “My plans already got canceled, so, there’s really no reason for me to leave, but, maybe-” She clicked her mouth and pointed finger guns at her team as she walked back to the edge of the building. "We let the regular authorities handle this?" 

"You'll never get away with this, Doctor of Dina the Saru!" Wonder Woman yelled. She drew her sword and posed heroically, and 4/5th of the rest of her team also posed heroically, and Batgirl sighed at the back. 

"Muwahahaha, oh, I already have!" yelled Dr. Saru, "Because this is actually all legal in this state, thanks to the tireless efforts of our army of corporate lobbyists," she said. She posed triumphantly.

Bumblebee and Zatanna got out of their ready stance and looked to Batgirl.

But Green Lantern and Wonder Woman remained ready to fight, "Technically, everything we do is extrajudicial,” Green Lantern said, “So it's not like this evil scheme being endorsed by state laws is any reason for us to stop.” 

Wonder Woman nodded, "This was also the case with the Two Brians, and we still performed our noble duty despite the legal issues.” 

"No, we had them on kidnapping," Batgirl said. She sighed and walked back towards her team, "Well, if we want to remain legal, the thing to do is gather evidence of foul play in the facilities and try to shut down the operation by rallying public support against the legalization of terminator genes.” 

“That’s a little political for superheroes, though, isn’t it?” Bumblebee asked. “At least, our kind of superheroes.” 

“Yeah, I think our MO is more, problems we can punch.” Supergirl said. She punched her palm for effect. 

"That, does seem to be the case, for superheros in general.” Barbara said, “But we also do try to talk to our villains. Usually it’s just banter, but-” She shrugged, “We can give you a few minutes to try to reason with her with a life-affirming speech or something."

Green Lantern nodded. She floated towards the center of the room. "C'mon Dr. Saru, is this really what you want to be doing with your degree?" 

"Well, actually, I specialize in birds, but our lobbyists haven't legalized inserting terminator genes in chickens yet."

"Factory Chicken production is already terribly exploitative," Green Lantern said. She frowned, "So, yeah, you’re going down-” 

And before anyone could stop her, Green lantern defeated their villain for the night.

* * *

“Well, that was easy,” Batgirl said, after she grappling hooked down towards the center of the lab, where the villainous scientist was tied up. 

“Do we destroy the terminatored quinoa?” Supergirl asked.

“The quinoa is still edible,” Bumblebee said, “Terminator genes don’t impact the nutrition, flavor, or health effects of a crop, but the same mechanisms used to implant them can also perform other alterations to the subject, so it is possible that they have been additionally tampered with in ways that make them evil."

“Other forms of alteration were not approved be the FDA, so they’re otherwise unchanged,” said the doctor. 

"Sooo," Batgirl said. She pointed to the door. "Are we, done here?"

But then vines emerged from the outskirts of the facility, snaking their way along the lap equipment to where the superheros gathered around their captive. 

"Miserable humans," seethed a soft voice from the shadows. 

The Superhero Girls sunk into defensive stances and turned towards the origin of the voice. 

"Defiling the natural world, mutilating defenseless plants for your own profit..." Poison Ivy emerged into view. 

“Oh, hey, you switched your shoes again,” Supergirl said. “They look nice.” 

Poison Ivy opened her mouth, and closed her mouth, and then she coughed. “Thanks-”

“And your hair looks really nice today!” Bumblebee said. She yelled, because she had shrunken and thus didn't have the lung capacity she usually did.

Poison Ivy’s regularly mint green skin tinted violet, around her cheeks. “O-oh. Um-”

The vines started rising again. Poison Ivy coughed and posed again. “You’ll not distract me, miserable humans-”

Batgirl logged that attempt to exploit Poison Ivy’s weaknesses in their team log book.

"So did the rest of the Gotham City Sirens follow you here?" Wonder Woman asked, proving that Poison's most recent statement was wrong.

Poison Ivy laughed, and she covered her mouth with her hand in a way she probably thought looked elegant, "Oh, those fools? I wouldn't trust them. None of the rest of Catwoman’s group do anything unless they can make money off of it.”

And her face flattened and she spoke the next sentence in a mumbled monotone. "And Star Sapphire gets weird about my relationship with plants.” 

Poison Ivy coughed. “I also think Catwoman is considering renaming us the Female Furies. I don’t actually care, though-” She raised her hands and the vines similarly rose up, “And soon, none of you will either,” she intoned as she was lifted into the air, “Because you’ll be dead, muwahahaha~” 

* * *

The fight actually went pretty well for the heroes, because six on one was hardly fair and Poison Ivy was kind of wimpy in a straight-up fist fight. 

“This was rather ill advised for you, Poisonous Ivy-leaves,” Wonder Woman said, to the downed supervillain. 

Poison Ivy didn't react. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be concentrating on something. 

“I suppose you will have time to reflect upon your folly in jail." Wonder Woman stepped towards the villian.

But then the nearest silo of Quinoa exploded, and a shambling mound of sprouting, motile leafy pseudocereal emerged and took a swipe at Wonder Woman, who blocked the attack with her shield.

Three more silos burst open, and the errant seeds washed over the ground in waves until the entire floor was covered in rapidly growing green and tan sprouts that coalesced into vaguely humanoid monsters.

Batgirl stepped back to cover Dr. Saru. "How many tons of quinoa were there were there in the silos outside?” 

Dr. Saru scratched her cheek, best she could with the rope around her torso, and she visibly sweated. "Maybe, 400 tons." 

And similar explosions resounded from just outside the lab.

"Hey, looks like you get to fight an army of terminators after all," Zatanna said to Batgirl. 

* * *

  
  
  
  


“Haha!” Wonder Woman said. She lunged and sliced a plant thing in half and grunted a battle grunt. “Once more into the breeches my friends, as they say!”

Batgirl dodged an attack from a plant thing and fell back to higher cover. “It’s actually ‘once more into the breech’-” 

Wonder Woman frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s ‘breeches’, because that is another word for ‘pants’.” She parried a blow.

Batgirl opened her mouth and closed her mouth. She threw a off-brand batarang at a plant monster. “I- why, would that matter?"

Wonder Woman sliced another plant monster in half. “True Greeks have been sworn enemies of pants. When the rest of Greece fell after the Scythians introduced pants to our culture, Themiskyra endured, and vowed to preserve the proud and noble fight against pants.” 

Barbara realized that she couldn’t ever remember Diana ever wearing pants in either of her identities. 

“Thus, ‘going into breeches’ is a metaphor for ‘entering suboptimal situations," Wonder Woman said.

“Um,” Batgirl said. She cartwheel-kicked a plant thing. “Well, I’ll have to go over Shakespeare quotes and evolving colloquialisms when we’re- hya! - not in mortal danger...” 

* * *

  
  


They were being overrun, but Batgirl had a potential plan. 

“Supergirl, you can absorb and emit sunlight, right?” she asked.

“I mean, sure, but it’s night."

“How long would it take you to get to the sun?”

“Ehhh,” Supergirl said. She lazerbeamed some plant monsters. “Clearing the atmosphere takes a while, and the sun is pretty far away.”

“I could portal you, _pretty_ close to the sun,” Zatanna said. She waved her wand and a stream of purple glowing orbs emerged and homed in on the plant monsters nearest to her, “But it’d take about two minutes to do.” 

“Would that be faster?” Batgirl said. 

Bumblebee tapped at an outward screen on her techsuit. “Calculations say yes,” she said. 

“And would you also need a portal on the return?” 

“I can leave the portal partially intact for the return,” Zatanna said.

“It might be hard to find in space-" 

“I can put a tracker on it,” Bumblebee said.

“Cool- do all of that.” Batgirl said.

Zatanna nodded and started chanting. Bumblebee rapidly prototyped some electronics. 

“And Green Lantern-” Batgirl said, “Can you use your ring to make aerosolized mono-molecules?” 

“I- don’t see why not,” Green lantern said. 

“And Zatanna- after you portal Supergirl I’m going to need you to raise the temperature of the air in the vicinity.”

“I have just the spell for that,” Zatanna said. 

“And Bumblebee- can I ask you to distract Poison Ivy, to prevent her killing Dr. Dina Saru in rage?” 

“On it!” Bumblebee said. She saluted and shrunk and skedaddled. 

“Alright-” Batgirl posed heroically, “Wonder Woman, can you hold the line while half the team prepares?” 

Wonder Woman just laughed in affirmation. "Is that even a question?" She bisected another three plant things. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

Bumblebee dodged a few vines as she closed ranks with tonight’s supervillain. 

“Hey, um,” she said, and she tried to remember what Batgirl briefed her on Poison Ivy’s psychological weaknesses. “Your, shoes, look nice?” 

“You already said that,” Poison Ivy deadpanned. She waved her arms and a particularly large mass of quinoa formed a large humanoid figure around her. 

“I mean, technically Supergirl said that, but I guess I can always rely on just, tackling you,” Bumblebee said, mostly to herself. 

* * *

  
  
  
  


And there was a big long fight where Batgirl and Wonder Woman held a steadily diminishing circle around a dormant portal and Zatanna and Green Lantern as they concentrated on channeling a plot objective.

At a dramatic moment, the portal pulsed, and Supergirl burst through to a point, radiating warm sunlight from her body. 

Green Lantern and Zatanna activated their respective abilities. A swirl of warm air and green mist wafted over the laboratory battleground, to simulate a bright autumn day, except indoors and surrounded by plant monsters. 

Bumblebee stopped her fight with Poison Ivy, who herself paused to look at the sudden change of atmosphere.

Even the plant monsters momentarily ceased their onslaught.

And the combination of sunlight, temperature, and ethylene triggered the artificially implanted terminator genes to internally trigger early apoptosis inside every cell within all the animated quinoa. 

“No,” Poison Ivy yelled, “Nooooooooo!” 

She scrambled towards the nearest plant thing to cradle it in her arms. 

The quinoa sprouts blackened at their tips, and the integrity of the plant amalgam started to fail.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the decaying husk of plant matter in her arms. “I couldn’t give you the life you deserved.” 

The husk didn’t react in any way discernible to humans as it turned to dust. 

Poison Ivy sobbed a heaving, guttural sob, twice. 

“Don’t terminator genes usually just render the grains infertile?” Bumblebee asked Batgirl, in a low voice.

Batgirl shrugged.

“So I guess~~,” Batgirl said, awkwardly. She grimaced at her teammates, “We _nipped_ that apocalypse in the _bud_ ~.” 

It elicited a few chuckles. Not her best post-victory pun, but-

“You monsters,” Poison Ivy spat at the superheros. She struggled to stand up and ultimately failed to. 

“I mean,” Batgirl made a grimace that was also a smile and she shrugged, “You were trying to unleash a bunch of literal monsters on a civilian population center, sooooo-”

“Oh, humans care _so much_ about their own kind,” Poison Ivy spat, “You think it makes you noble when you exploit the world, because you care about something that already benefits you. You’re just reframing your selfishness as virtue so you don’t have to care that you’re hurting the entire world.” 

Ivy wiped her mouth on her arm. “Humans don’t need protectors, and all you _heroes_ are just serving your own interests to protect those already in power. That just means that the voiceless have no one. That the worlds you trample underfoot for your ‘progress’ and ‘expansion’ have no protector.” 

“Who will speak for the plants, if not me?” Ivy seethed. 

Barbara stepped forward and opened her mouth. If she allowed the villain to get the last word in that was an implicit endorsement of their ideas. “I mean, Green Lantern here is also an environmentalist- and, who says that saving lives and saving plants is mutually exclusive?" 

“How very convenient that your idea means that no humans have to be inconvenienced,” Ivy spat. "I wouldn't expect you to understand what it means to be truly devoted- when it's not just convenient to you- when it takes everything from you and you still fight on, because you actually care..."

"I'ma give that, a B minus," said Star Sapphire. 

Everyone turned to the corner where it turned out Star Sapphire had been standing the whole time. She had her phone out and she occasionally glanced down and poked at it. 

"A 'B'?!" Ivy yelled. She choked back a sob. "You deign fit to judge the depths of my devotion?”

"No, because it also seems like your feelings are mixed with some kind of self-grievance." Star Sapphire waved her hand, idly. "or, something like that, I forgot what The Harlequin said.” 

“It’s actually just ‘Harlequin’,” Batgirl said. 

Star Sapphire ignored Batgirl. “It’s like, you get angry on behalf of them but you don't seem to be all that focused on _showing_ your love.” She nonchalantly took a few steps towards where Ivy lay.

Poison Ivy grit her teeth. “Well I wouldn’t be showing love in a combat situation, nor would any instance where I need to fight someone be conducive to any exhortations of 'love'-"

“Sure, that’s valid,” Star Sapphire said. She continued walking. “So I guess I’m not judging your love as a whole, just your display of it,” She waved her hand idly and looked at the wall and shrugged, “Which one may argue is the only real way to measure the existence of such a phenomena, but let’s leave physics aside for now.” 

Star Sapphire was right before Poison Ivy, now. She held her hand out to the fallen supervillain.

Ivy frowned but took the hand, and got to her feet. 

“Anyway,” Star Sapphire said. She turned to the Superheros and raised her right hand-

And a coruscating constellation of pinkish dust materialized and coalesced into dozens of pink clumps of amorphous plasmoid energy that then spiraled into the base of her palm, before a scintillation of more brilliant orbs radially effervesced from her palm, coalescing into a giant energy ball that erupted into an arc of uniform photons that pulsed five times, at the heroes.  
  
Wonder Woman gathered Batgirl and their captive villain behind her shield, which spallated in small shocks of electricity against the particulate onslaught. Bumblebee shrunk and hid in a vent, while Green Lantern and Zatanna put up shields and Supergirl spread her arms out and basked in the energy inferno as her Kryptonian body held firm against the onslaught of non-resonant radiation. 

And the arc of rarified atmosphere collapsed, creating a concussive shockwave that knocked Supergirl out of the sky and shattered Zatanna's weakened shield. Wonder Woman was pushed back a half meter from the blast.

Ivy muttered a thanks and the two villains left the room while the heroes recovered.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
In the end, both Star Sapphire and Poison Ivy escaped, and Dr. Saru wasn't charged with any criminal activity, but the Superhero Girls still saved the city and also became better friends for weathering hardship together, which was the true victory.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  


Barbara got to the food station in the cafeteria first, again. 

Maybe it was her bat ninja abilities that allowed her to weave through the throngs of hungry students so well, or maybe it was just that her English class was really close to the cafeteria so it was easy to just jump right there if she didn't put anything in her locker. 

But she got to her team’s regular table first, again. Texting Harleen didn’t seem so urgent, anymore, now that Barbara had demonstrated to herself that she was capable of just commuting down to Gotham to physically visit her oldest friend.

Plus, Harles had her own friends, and Barb had the latent feeling that her new friends thought she was neglecting them for her oldest one.

So Barbara just sent a quick meme to Harles before morphing down some chili and string beans so she could talk with less interruption, going forward.

Diana approached first, and Barbara waved, but then Diana got intercepted by what was apparently one of her apparently many, many admirers.

Diana smiled gently as she delivered her rejection- but she also put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave a short inspiring speech about how he, in specific, was special. And you know that probably contributed to her popularity. 

Karen and Kara joined right as Diana finished up.

"Hey," Barbara said, once Diana sat down, "I don't know if it's a compliment to say that it seems like you're getting good at rejecting people, but, congrats. I don’t know how I’d handle having that much attention.” 

"Yes, It is a skill that I have found myself needing to hone," Diana said, "especially for some of your human girls, but I found that honestly and positivity usually work very well, especially to preserve a fair maiden’s heart.” 

Barbara blinked. “Uh, Noah, there, is a boy," she said.

Diana tilted her head to the side. "But she had long hair, which you tell me is a signifier of not being a boy."

“That was what we call a ‘wash and wear’ hairstyle, which is usually found on boys.” 

“But she had thin shoulders."

Barbara leaned to try to get a glance at the boy in question. “I, guess? I think that’s mostly the style of his shirt?” 

(Over the next few days, Barbara would idly try to gauge the shoulder width of various students she happened to sit or otherwise be behind.)

Diana tilted her head to the other side. “And she was very sensitive, which, again, you tell me is a signifier of not being a boy."

“Um, _he_ , is a nerd, which means he'd be less good at social interaction, which might come across as being sensitive- or maybe he is!" Barbara pontificated ineffectually, "That’s, not a particularly good indicator of gender, come to think of it.” 

Karen furtively glanced at Barbara, since the obvious thing to do would be to bring her up when talking about nerds, but Barb didn’t want to accidentally put her on the spot. 

Diana nodded slowly. "O...kay.." 

"Actually," Jessica said, as she and Zee joined them at their table, "Boys tend to be more sensitive because they bottle their feelings up more.” 

"Ah, the flagellant ideology," Diana said. She nodded. 

"Yeah, that describes boys, at least, stereotypically," Zee said. “But I know a lot of girls that do that too."

Diana frowned. “If none of your signifiers seem to apply in all cases, is there really an important distinction to these 'Boys'?"

Everyone else at the table made mouth noises as they each tried to avoid being the first one to actually give an answer.

“Well, what’s most relevant to us right now is,” Barbara said, “Usually we’d only be interested in dating boys.” 

Diana blinked. "You mean to say that 'boys' are the only ones allowed to be courted? That being a 'Boy' means you are culturally signalling that other humans can attempt to court you?"

Barbara idly wondered if it'd be too much to explain that, if anything, boys thought _girls_ were always available ro be courted.

“No I mean - not that there’s anything wrong with, anyone dating anyone else-" Barbara sputtered.

Karen put her hand on Barbara's, and she cleared her throat and heroically changed the subject.

"I mean, I don't really intend to date anyone in high school…." Karen said.

"Its not like any relationship is going to go anywhere," Zee said. She ran her hand through her hair. "College dating is where its at."

"Why would I date when there's so many protests to go to?" Jessica said.

"You could kil two bir-" Zee cleared her throat, "-accomplish two objectives at once by taking him on a date _to_ the protest."

"I find that the activities that make a successful date and a successful protest are usually mutually exclusive," Jessica said, "so you can switch between chanting and trying to get to know each other, but you won’t do either very well.” 

Barbara inhaled and exhaled, and went once more into the breeches.

"Did you ever, date, in Themiskyra?" Barbara asked. And she was acutely aware that she was actually asking, uh, if Diana was into girls. 

"No," Diana stated, "Because, like all of you, I was not interested in forming a long-term pair bond, or joining someone in requesting a baby from the Stork." 

“Ah,” Barbara said, and she decided not to be miffed that the answer didn't answer her subtle question.

Diana took a bite of chili. "Though my Erastes did inform me of all proper courtship rituals, so I _am_ knowledgeable about the logistics."

“Ah, your…, era- what now?” Barbara said.

Wonder Woman frowned as she pontificated, ineffectually. "She is, ah. Translates as- an older warrior, who loves you, and shows you how to be an adult."

There was a chorus of blinking. 

"An… Older, warrior?" Barbara said, “Who, loves you?”

“Yes, a sister in arms, and a beloved mentor."

“So like,” Barbara parsed, “She’d be more like, an older sister, or an Aunt, or a mentor, or a- bond...mate…?”

“Many of those ideas have overlap in my culture," Diana said. "So, I will say yes, but please tell me what each of those archetypes mean to your culture.” 

"Ehajeeheh, its, complicated and also not standardized," Barbara said. “But you said, this Erastes, teaches you how to, be an adult?” 

"Yes." Diana nodded.

"What, parts of being an adult?" 

"Well, everything," Diana said.

Barbara made eye contact with Kara and Jessica.

Karen became very interested in her chili, and occasionally glanced up and squeaked of she made eye contact.

Zee made eye contact with Barbara and Kara-

"What?" Diana asked.

"Okay, elephant in the room, here-" Barbara said.

Karen squeaked again when she realized what Barbara was getting at.

Diana looked around, surprised, "There is an elephant in this room? But it is so crowded-”

Barbara allowed herself to chuckle, "no, that means, that there's something everyone is thinking but are too awkward to say-"

"We are friends," Diana said to her team she smiled, warmly, "Please, be candid."

Barbara took a deep breath. "So, from our cultural values, what you are describing would be considered creepy if you were having sex."

Every other member of the table became very interested in their food. 

Diana tilted her head to the side. "What is 'sex'?" 

Karen choked on her chocolate milk, quite a bit. Jessica sprayed her organic orange juice over her vegetarian chili.

Kara coughed twice and put her fist to her mouth as she blushed and looked away. Zee's mouth froze open.

"Um, okay, well, that answers that question," Barbara said. She sighed but also was, herself, rather mortified.

"But seriously," Diana said, "What is 'se-"

"Yoooooooooouuuu," Barbara said, as she put a finger to Diana's lips, "are gonna need to ask your mother about that. Like, immediately."

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Harley Quinn had just received her replacement cellphone from Arthur when she got a Villain Summons. She made a new Discord to give to Catwoman during the time she didn't have her phone, but she didn't get anything from it so she worried she had missed out on a bunch of criminal activity during that week. 

She got into costume and then laughed, maniacally, before she headed out, because what was the point of being a villain if you didn't have fun with it, but at the same time, something like 80% of villains got defeated during fits of maniacal laughter, so it was good to get that out of the way before hand. 

She made an excuse to her mom and texted Arthur and took public transport to the location in the text-

And when she got there-

It was a gym.

A gym in Gotham, so like, it was a low-ceiling concrete bunker with flickery fluorescent lights, and windows that wouldn't let in enough light even if it were day.

"Heeee~eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- " Harley Quinn continued saying because it didn't seem like she had anything better to say, and she didn't see anyone she knew-

"Hey," Giganta said, from a weightlifting bench. 

Harley Quinn glanced down. 

Their team's muscle was lying down, pushing two hundred pounds of round lead off the ground, repeatedly. 

"Soooooooooo," Harley Quinn said, "Gettin' a workout in, good fer ya. But, what's the plan fer tonight?" 

"I'm doing hella lifts so I can get swole AF, that's what." Muscles said. She in between grunts as she pushed up on the bar.

In the corner, Star Sapphire was on her phone. She glanced up and nodded her head. 

"No, but- what about after?" Harley said. "Aren't we doing crimes later?"

"I didn't intend to," Giganta said. Maybe 'Gi' was a better nickname for her, since it was a syllable shorter. 

"Then, why'dya summon everyone?" Harley Quinn said. She glanced around. "And where's, everyone else?" 

"They couldn't make it," Giganta said. "And its fine- Sapphire's already spotting me."

Harley looked at the short girl in the big poofy ball dress, on the other side of the room, staring at her phone.

"She, is?" Harley said.

Star waved her hand and pink heart bullets swirled around her. "Yeah, with the power of love."

Harley clicked her mouth. "Ah didn't know that was in the 'love' power-set."

"Well, the saying is 'true love conquers all', not 'true love conquers all except resistance training.'"

"Livewire is catfishing people online, and Catwoman had a date," Giganta said. She grunted again as she complete another rep. 

Harley pulled up the text again and noted, with some dismay, that Gi had explicitly said this was for a workout, and not a crime.

"What about Poison Ivy?" Harleen asked. 

"What about that nerd?" Gi said. 

"Did she say she was coming?" 

"She didn't respond, but I assumed she wasn't interested in working out, so, it's fine." Gi started another rep. 

Well, that was too bad. Ivy was the most fun member of her new team. 

Not that, Sapphire's snark, Catwoman's puns or Livewire's desperate attempts to be edgy weren't fun- they were fun in the conventional way-

But Poison Ivy was always super serious, which was important for a comedic duo. Like, she could try bouncing jokes off Catwoman if she was okay punctuating every joke with a horrible pun, or Livewire if she was going for 'Amateur Comedy Club Open Mic'. Giganta was too dumb to bounce jokes off of and Sapphire just didn't care, which could potentially be funny but didn't quite gel with Harley's act. 

And, like, it was also cool to be part of a villain group for the conventional reasons, too. Not just because they happened to have a decent amount of comedic potential. 

And it was cool to be part of an all-girl villain group specifically. Since being performatively sexist in order to mask actual sexism was something she'd fully expect from a group with multiple male villains trying to one up one another-

And maybe they could talk about, like, their feelings, in this villain group. But like in a plausibly deniable way, because, again, villains. 

Like, the things she wasn't willing to talk to her best friend about. Like, how much fun it was to commit crimes.

And she looooved Babsy, but she was definitely the police commissioner's daughter in like every way; personality, values, and, often, in physical earshot of actual cops.

"I, actually, cancelled a date of my own to make this," Harley Quinn said. She frowned theatrically. "Where does that kitty cat get off placing herself above us?"

Star Sapphire looked up from her phone, "You did what?" 

"OH!" Harley said. She had an idea, and she cartwheeled up to the pink lantern. "Heyyy, Sapphy~~"

"It's 'Star Sapphire'-" 

"How does my love for my new BF check out on your- whatsit- love-o-meter?"

Sapphire looked at her, blankly, for an uncomfortable three seconds. "You don't want me to answer that," she said. 

Harley opened her mouth. "I, do, though? Why wouldn't I?" 

"You're still in the crush phase," Sapphire said. She turned back to her phone. "Love is a process, so it's too early to tell." 

"But, lookit-" 

She pulled out her phone- and the contact name was 'sweetums' so it wasn't like divulging any private information. 

"Look, he says he misses me, and wishes I were there with him." 

"Cool," Sapphy said to her phone. "Go to him, then." 

"I said it was non-urgent in the message," Gi said, and "And you look reasonably in shape, anyway. You're, what, a gymnast? Swimmer? Maybe a cheerleader?"

"Not a cheerleader," Star Sapphire said. 

"Gymnast," Harley Quinn said. "Among other things-" 

"So you're already pretty cut," Gi said, "So its just, a bit more training to get ripped, then jacked, then SWOLE." She did one final push before throwing the barbell off to the side. She sat up and did some cooldown stretches in her arms. 

"Ahhh, don’t wanna go that far..." Harley rubbed the back of her costume around her head. 

So like, being physically fit was her only defense, though, against all these like literal aliens and magic warrior women that started popping up to stop their crime spree. But also, she _did_ have other hobbies, and didn't want to have to devote time away from doing them just to give her another few seconds against people who'd inherently be in a higher weight class than her. Besides, the best defense against someone physically stronger than you was cunning, planning, and possibly, psychology. 

"Yeah, she's trying to lean more into the clown thing," Sapphire said, "Just look at her costume." 

Just to appease Giganta, Harley Quinn made her way to a nearby yoga mat and did some stretches. 

"Ah mean, that's true." Harley Quinn chuckled to herself. "Ah realized when I walked in here that I didn't have any jokes about exercise, and ah've been trying to come up wid sumtin." She said. She could make it retroactively true, by starting now. Let's see- dumb bells, probably had some potential there...

"Isn't it in keeping with Clowns to be incredibly unfunny?" Sapphire said. 

“Eyyy,” Harley said, acknowledging the burn. 

"But nahh, humor is pretty straightforward," Harley said. She grabbed her foot and held that pose for thirty seconds. “It’s just, a subversion of expectations. So you just, tell a regular joke, and then add sadness.” 

“A man walks into a bar. He says ouch!” Harley Quinn exclaimed. Her face flattened. “His insurance company refused to cover the medical bills.” 

Sapphire and Gi blinked. 

“Two goldfish are in a tank. One says to the other- ‘do you know how to drive this thing’?” Harley exclaimed. Her face flattened. “Their inexpertise causes unnecessary civilian casualties.” 

Gi chuckled at that. 

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” Harley said, excitedly. “It was hoping for a better life across the border! Too bad ICE caught it and kept it in a cell for 6 months.” 

And Sapphire laughed at that one. 

And with her mission accomplished, Harley Quinn figured she could leave. 

She sent a text to her boyfriend as she got on some public transportation back to town. 

Hey, it looks like I can get out of this early-

-Must not have been that important, then?

Harleen's smile wavered just a little, but she refreshed it. He probably didn't mean anything by that.


	3. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara introduces Harleen to the rest of her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fictional universe is copyrighted by District of Columbia 'DC' Comics.
> 
> I guarantee no expertise in or even basic correct knowledge of, DC's superhero universe, friendship, etymology, psychology, friendship, or correct English grammar. 
> 
> I know that Harleen met all of the superhero girls in the actual show by now, so this fic is already non-canon compliant. But that was gonna happen anyway. So maybe consider this, a fanfic of the _idea_ of the DC Superhero Girls show, or at least of the first 10 episodes.
> 
> Well, I guess i can cop to actually knowing a fair bit about superheros. In my defense, most of it's Marvel and I'm actually kind of embarrassed at spending so much of my brainpower pondering about an ad-hoc series of loosely-connected fiction that the largest media conglomerate in human history has been calculatedly pushing advertising at me in order to, ultimately, get my money.
> 
> But maybe I can still get some fake geek girl cred by not actually realizing that her supervillain name was 'Harley Quinn' rather than just 'Harlequin' until the 5th episode of the adult swim cartoon, despite it being the actual title. Retcons all around. 
> 
> One downside to trying to base all the pop culture conversations in the fic off of ones I have with my friends is that a whole lot of my pop culture conversations are about superheroes. Which i guess still happens, if, like. Batgirl and Wonder Woman talk about themselves, but that's, just, technically the same rather than actually the same, and i'm sure you can see the problem.
> 
> The other downside is that I'm becoming further removed from being a teenager by the day so I'm probably dating myself with all these references.

“Ooooh, I’m so excited!” Barbara said. It was Saturday and she was leading her friends that were also her superhero team to the food court in one of the local malls. They hadn't had any big villain fights recently, and Barbara figured they should ride the lull for as long as it was here, and _also_ that it was about time for her super best friends to meet her Gotham City best friend, because the transitive property of friendship meant that you should be friends with your friend's friends, right?

“I know she had to cancel the last couple times we did this, and this is only a lunch date because she has to do something right after, but you all finally get to meet my best- my oldest best friend!” Barbara jumped in place and waved her hands. 

Zee and Jessica were most excited. Diana had her usual, like, sage-y optimistic responsiveness. Karen was sunk into her bee-patterned sweater, but she was usually down to do social things. Kara seemed unfocused and bored, but that was usual for her. 

“So just a heads up, she’s kind of a gadfly,” Barbara said. She turned to Diana. “Do you want to take this Di?” 

“A ‘Gadfly’ is someone who makes provocative statements in a bid to reveal deeper truths hidden by societal convention,” Diana recited. She stood up straight and closed her eyes and nodded. “When Socrates was on trial for her life, she famously compared the Athenian senate to a slow-witted horse, and herself as the Gadfly that provokes it, which is where the term originates." 

“Yeah that's exactl- erm,” Barbara said. She refreshed her smile and waved the air. "That's right enough.” 

Diana furrowed her brow. “Only right ‘enough’?” 

Barbara made a grimace, like she usually did whenever the topic of gender came up with Diana. “No it’s- it’s right. It’s fine, my bad for, like, instilling doubt into your braaiinn~” she waved her arms around. “So, uh, did you learn about Socrates back in Themyscria, but they just said he was a woman?"

“What? Oh no; I learned about Socrates in the debate club.” Diana put a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “There is so much the world of Man has developed about Philosophy since the ancient Greeks invented it.” 

Barbara opened her mouth, and then closed her mouth. “Sure. But!" she turned to her other friends, "The point iiiissss, she might make things a little weird or uncomfortable, or like, latently psychoanalyze you in a very intrusive way, but she means well! And she's super smart and funny and kind, just like all of you! So-"

“Babsy-wabsy!” called out a girl. She had blond hair tied into two ponytails, with one tip dyed red and the other blue. Her jacket was similarly two-toned, but on opposite sides as her hair (Barbara had given her that jacket years ago and Harleen had dyed her hair to match- erm, to counter match? as soon as her mom let her guard down. Which did kind of mean that Harleen would have a hard time switching up her outfit), and she wore jean shorts over patterned tights. 

“Leeny-beany!” Barbara yelled out. She ran up to her best friend, and they did the dance and chant they had come up with together in middle school. 

There was a chorus of blinking from the rest of Barbara's friend group. 

"So, this is Harleeeenn~" Barbara pontificated. 

“Heya! How're yall doing? It’s so nice ta meet Babsy-wabsy’s new friends!” Harleen walked up to each of Barbara’s new friend group and shook one of each of their hands, in both her own, like a politician or someone otherwise trying to engender trust, but slso because she liked to get into people's personal space. 

“So it looks like you found a fellow nerd,” Harleen said as she shook Karen’s hands. 

“Ah-” Barbara said, because Karen probably wouldn’t have the nerve to say anything. “That’s Karen.” 

“And a punk?” Harleen appeared behind Kara, poking her head out of the left side of Kara’s shoulders, “Or maybe a jock?” Harleen poked her head out from right shoulder. 

“Punk, obviously,” Kara said. She blew hair out of her face, while Harleen walked around to her front to do her double handshake. “I’m Kara.” 

“Ooo, does that ever get confusing?” Harleen said. 

“Nnn- no?” Barbara lied. 

“And a hippie! You are a dying breed,” Harleen said. 

“Ah- I’m Jessica, and- is that, so?” Jessica said. 

Harleen pirouetted across the half-circle of teenagers to get to Zee, skipping over Diana. “And a goth prep!”

“I am only barely a goth,” Zee insisted. She ran her hand through her hair. “It comes with the hair color and the magician schickt. I’m Zee Zatara, at your service-” 

“And I did skip over you I admit,” Harleen said as she ignored Zee’s bow and finally got to Diana. 

To her credit, Diana took the introduction in stride with a big smile and an enthusiastic return of the handshake. She put her free hand over the hand clasp after Harleen did so, which then devolved into them awkwardly lifting their hands up and down. “It is okay. I am Diana Prince, warrior of Theymiscrya-" 

"Ah-" Barbara said. 

“Oooh, a foreigner!” Harleen said. Their handshake fell apart. “That’s more of a subclass, though it does uniquely inflect whatever broader class you're a part of." 

“I, do not know exactly what reply you are looking for,” Diana said. “My class is ‘warrior’-”

“Yas queen, slay,” Harleen shot finger guns at Diana. 

“-oh, I'm only a princess," Diana brought her hand to her collar, "But I don’t think I understand the term the same way you are using the term. Is it perhaps a regional colloquialism?" 

"Ah, see," Harleen said. She took a seat at one of the nearby circular tables at the food court, "Personalities are drawn to certain archetypical behaviors and mannerisms, usually defined by the pervading culture the individual is exposed to. Cultural trends will take cues from real life phenomena, reinforce them, and occasionally create them from whole cloth!" 

Barbara sat down right next to Harleen, and the rest of the girls found their own spots. 

"Interesting," Diana said, "And you believe all of us can be defined by one of these 'Classes'?" 

"Well, duh!” Harleen said. “Its tautologically true; there’s a whoooole spectrum of different kinds of people, and we just put some arbitrary lines around a particular part of them, and since we choose where we draw the lines, we can say everyone is defined by a clique.” 

"So, which Class are you defined by?" Diana said. 

"Oh, nerd, but with a side of Class Clown," Harleen said. She waved the air. "Of course, these are only broad archetypes; everyone is an individual with a unique tapestry of personal experiences so I’m sure my nerdiness is different from, like, shorty over there." 

“Ah-” Karen said. Barbara winced; she probably should have asked Harleen to go easy on Karen ahead of time- 

“So you are a clown?” Diana said. 

“Sure am!” Harleen beat her fist on her chest and then pumped her arms in exaggerated clown motions. “Ah can do pratfalls and pantomime, but my specialty is jokes.”

Barbara smiled. Harleen’s specially was, indeed, jokes, and this was an opportunity for all her other friends to get to know Harles at her friendliest (and not at her, annoying gadflying-est.) 

Harleen parted her hands in front of her face, as a nonverbal introduction to her bit. “So! Why can't you trust atoms?" 

“I was not aware that Adams are untrustworthy,” Diana said. 

Harleen giggled, twice, under her breath. She waved the air. "Because they make up everything!" 

Barbara’s mouth opened wide in a silent laugh. She looked at the rest of her friends, who simply blinked in chorus. 

Harleen's expression flattened. "But in a world defined by flawed people, it is up to us to decide what our truths are, and what they mean to us.” 

There was another chorus of blinking. Barbara nodded solemnly, in agreement. 

“Those are wise words, friend Harleen,” Diana intoned. 

Harleen refreshed her smile and pumped her arms in exaggerated clown motions. “Why can’t you give Queen Elsa a balloon?” 

Barbara 's expression flattened, because not all of Harle’s jokes were great, but Harleen didn’t entirely realize that. "Because she'll let it-"

"Because she'll let it gooooooo!" Harleen wave her arms in the air. 

There was another chorus of blinking. 

Harleen sighed, theatrically. "But it’s okay: she’s used to disappointment, and loneliness.” 

Diana frowned. “That is an unacceptable circumstance for a monarch! We should find her and give her a balloon tied to a rock, which is the obvious solution.” 

Harleen started laughing. “Ok, _you_ are actually pretty funny.” She turned to Barbara. “It’s great that Babs has managed to make a friend wid a sense of humor!” 

Diana smiled. "I think so too.” 

Harleen waved her hand over her face to refresh her smile like it was a scene reset. “So, you know about koalas-”

“Nooooooooooooooooo,” Barbara said. She flopped over the table. 

“Fiiiinnneeeee,” Harleen said. She refreshed her smile. “So! What’s the best thing about elevator jokes?"

Barbara sat up. “Oo, this is a good one-” 

Diana smiled. “I do not know; tell me what it is.”

Harleen waved her arms in the air. "They work on so many levels!”

Barbara’s mouth opened wide in a silent laugh. She looked at the rest of her friends, expectantly. Karen obliged, quietly. 

Diana's smile didn't waver. "And what levels are those, that they work on?" 

Harleen clicked her mouth, not breaking stride. “Well, they also pick you up when you’re down!” She waved her hands in the air. 

Barbara chuckled. Jessica and Zee chuckled awkwardly. 

Harleen nodded solemnly. “It’s really an uplifting experience, at least as far my experience has gone.” 

Karen coughed. 

"Of course, for some people," Harleen said. She smiled. “Elevators only serve to drive them up the wall.”

Kara’s expression flattened. Barbara hid a snicker under her hand. 

“And some people are even afraid of elevators," Harleen said, "But it's pretty easy for those people to take steps to avoid them." 

Diana tilted her head to the side. "Is there any logical reason to be afraid of these ‘elevators’?”

"Well, elevators can fail catastrophically," Harleen said, "and horribly kill anyone who’s inside at the time.” 

"That's horrible!” Diana gasped. 

"It sure is," Harleen intoned, solemnly, "But on the plus side, if their ghosts haunt that elevator, every time it goes up, it raises their spirits!" 

There was another chorus of blinking. 

Harleen refreshed her smile and wiggled her hands, slightly, again. “Raises, their spirits!” 

Zee coughed. 

Harleen leaned over to Barbara. “Tough crowd, huh?” 

Barbara scrunched her mouth to the side. “I guess you all aren’t fans of puns, huh?” 

The other 5 teenagers (erm, 4 teenagers and one teenage-looking 300 year old mythical homunculus) made various noncommittal noises. 

“But Kara, you like puns, don’t you?” Barbara said. Or, maybe that was true was only in her superhero alter-ego, like how Karen only seemed to be confident in costume.

“I like telling puns,” Kara said. “But I’m with Diana in that the only Adam I know is actually pretty trustworthy.” 

Barbara scrunched her mouth to the side. “I guess you wouldn’t have seen _Frozen_ either....” she mumbled. 

Karen coughed. “Um- she meant, ‘atoms’, in that first pun.” 

Kara tilted her head to the side. 

“Like, the basic components of matter?” Kara pontificated ineffectually. 

“Oh!” Diana exclaimed. “From _άτομο_. That which is indivisible. That makes sense!” 

(A few days later, Barbara and Karen would have some trouble trying to explain the concept of subatomic particles- and that atoms could, actually, be divided- to Diana.) 

Diana nodded in respect towards Harleen. “They ‘make up’ everything! You are very funny, friend Harleen.” 

Harleen ducked under the table, to re appear to the other side of Barbara, next to Diana. (On the outside it just looked like she disappeared under the table and popped at another spot, but Harleen actually did have to awkwardly weave between the steel support beams and Barbara's legs. Barb occasionally did the exact same thing, so she didn't mind.)

Harleen threw an arm around Diana’s shoulders. “Babsy, ah hate to break it to ya, but I’m dumping ya as my straight man in favor of Diana here.” 

“Aw shucks,” Barbara said. She pumped her arms in exaggerated clown motions. “But maybe you shouldn’t call it that-” 

Diana frowned. “You appear to be mistaken: I am not a straight Man,” She said. She put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “But rather a magical homunculus molded from clay and bestowed with life by three goddes-”

“Euaahgahgh,” Barbara leaned over the table to wave her arms in front of Diana. “She means, that she is not a man, and has strong opinions about referring to herself as a woman, specifically.” That, was actually almost the opposite of true, but hopefully Harleen wouldn’t notice and Diana wouldn’t ask for clarification. 

“Ah, fair enough, ah shudda said ‘comedic foil’,” Harleen said. She drew a point-blank finger gun and pointed it at Diana’s collarbone, “That’s what ya call the person who sits next ta tha doofy funny person, acting all serious, to make them funnier by comparison.” 

“I see,” Diana said. She nodded in a way that suggested she firmly believed she understood, “Well, I certainly can sit next to you and be serious.” 

"The most famous comedic foil," Harleen said. She looked off into the middle distance and waved her right arm in an imaginary panorama. "Is Batman. It's really the thing he's most good for.” 

Barbara winced. She'd hoped that they wouldn't have this debate again, in front of her new friends- in front of these specific friends- at least until they got to know each other better-

"Why is that?" Diana said.

Barbara tried to signal to Harleen to cut the line of conversation. 

"Well, he’s really good at being serious, all seriously reacting to all the poor people in Halloween costumes he fights on the reg,” Harleen said. “But I guess he’s not significantly worse than, just, the general ambient negative factors of any superhero.” 

It was even odds that Kara either didn’t notice or did notice but didn’t care. “What’s wrong with superheroes?” she said, a little suspicion in her voice. 

A slight degree of tension arose among the rest of the group. Barbara wondered if maybe she only noticed that because, obviously, she knew that they all were secretly superheros and thus had a personal stake in this political debate. 

"Ehh,” Harleen said. She pontificated randomly. “Wheell, they're not any worse than other, like, subtle affirmations of the status quo in favor of keeping the proletariat down, I guess ya could argue.” 

“Ahaha, yeah,” Barbara said, trying to pre-empt her friends from taking the obvious bait, “Just like how, in many ways, all our favorite Disney Princesses subtly legitimize non-democratic hereditary forms of government.” She pumped her arms in exaggerated clown motions.

(Diana pulled out her notepad and quietly tried to ask Jessica, who was sitting to the other side of her, what those words meant in that order.) 

“What do you mean by that?” Zee said. 

“Oh, dontcha know?” Harleen said. Her eyes twinkled and she leaned into the table, and Barbara winced and braced for the fallout. 

“Ah more famous person than I once said- and I know that’s technically an appeal to authority if I claim external precedent to avoid having to defend my beliefs on their own merits, but ah wanna point out that all these serious scholars and stuff point out similar things-” 

Diana nodded at the mention of a concept she recently learned about in debate club.

“That you could argue that the first superhero movie is actually D.W. Griffith’s _Birth of a Nation_ ” 

Harleen pointedly looked at Karen for two seconds, before continuing. 

"Specifically because it’s about, a small group of costumed vigilantes facing a threat that only they could defeat, to justify the use of force in preserving a broader cultural hierarchy and advocating for normative societal values.” 

“Ookay,” Barbara said: take two in changing the conversation, “You’ve read _Watchmen_ , we get it-” 

“I’ve read the _annotated_ Watchmen,” Harleen corrected, and for a moment Barbara regretted getting her that birthday present. “But the point remains that the point of any superhero is to reinforce the idea that institutions are inherently flawed and unable to provide for your prosperity or even basic safety, and that only by placing absolute power into an inscrutable, extrajudicial individual who is morally superior and endowed with powers beyond the abilities of normal people, can true safety and success be achieved on a societal level!" 

Harleen painted an imaginary panorama with her arms, over the table. "By creating a low-grade background belief in such individuals, authoritarian demagogues in real life power structures- whether they be countries, companies, subcultures or family units- can thus more easily take and hold onto power."

“I don’t think that’s what superheros are _intended_ to accomplish…” 

“For sure not in every case,” Harleen said, “And if we’re being generous, the the preservation of the status quo is a side effect of the normalization of the use of force in service of an implicitly morally superior individual, but it still validates that sort of philosophy.“

Harleen pontificated idly, “But don’t ya think it’s suspicious how many superheros always believe in the standard culturally-acceptable belief system of the predominant global culture?” 

Barbara probably could have put together a counter-argument with specific examples just by virtue of, you know, secretly actually being one of those superheroes, but this was probably not the optimal time to do that. 

“Hey, Harley-barley,” Barbara said, “Do you think close-up magic is similar to stand-up comedy?” 

Harleen, bless her heart, immediately switched gears. Her upper body jerked to the right and titled her head up and tapped her chin. “Wheell that’s a conundrum. Of course there’s similarities between two things, but now Ahm wondering if there’s, like, a superclass of in person performers we both would reside in."

Barbara exhaled. In retrospect, she probably could have, just, outright asked Harleen to change the subject, as a friend, and she’d do it, but this way at least felt less awkward to do. And as a bonus, this meant that Zee would have an opportunity to share her interests. 

Zee nodded. “Yeah, that’s an interesting idea.” She smiled and stood up, because she never passed up the opportunity to show off, “Allow me to show you a trick-” 

Zee pulled out a deck of cards and then walked Harleen through a ‘is this your card’ style magic trick. 

Harleen acted incredibly impressed during each part of the trick. That was sort of her default personality, but Barbara appreciated that Harleen was trying to be a good audience member for Barbara’s friend. 

“Woaaaahhhh,” Harleen said, exaggeratedly grabbing her cheek in her free hand. “I almost couldn’t tell you had the card up your sleeve!” 

Barbara re-assessed her previous conclusion. 

Zee’s expression cracked, slightly. 

Harleen didn’t miss a beat. “Is that why you wear long sleeves with a skirt?” 

Zee exhaled indignantly and closed her eyes and brought her hand to her chest. “I happen to wear what I wear because it’s fashionable.” 

“But the cuffs do let you keep cards up your sleeves, through? Right?” Harleen said. “Right? Right?” 

Zee smushed her lips together. “... yes.” 

“Anyway,” Barbara said, “Close up magic and stand up comedy do seem to be very similar, right?” 

“It, would appear so,” Zee said. 

“So you’re both performers,” Barbara insisted. “So, you probably have to do similar things, which might suggest you have a basis to build a friendship on?"

“Well, magic takes a _little_ more effort than comedy,” Zee said. 

“Yep,” Harleen said, “We’re both out to entertain the audience at whatever cost.” 

Zee blinked, “Wait what?” she said. 

Harleen scrunched her mouth to the side. “I mean, isn’t, that the purpose of performance, woodn't ya say?” 

“Excuse me,” Zee said. She put a hand to her chest, “I happen to be an artiste, and performance is simply the expression of that art. 

Harleen scrunched her mouth to the side. “Did I offend you?” 

Zee looked to the side. “Eehhh.” 

“Like, do you not want to actually entertain people? Like maybe you're actually looking for validation instead of viewing your craft as a vocation-” 

Barbara interjected. “How about you, Diana? Why don't you say words now?” 

Diana obliged. “Well, every club in school has asked me to join, so I have made arrangements to participate in all of them, sequentially, for short periods of time,” she said, “But I have taken to the Debate club recently. The notions of applying Philosophy to rhetoric and elocution are intriguing to me.” 

Jessica nodded. "She has.” 

“Oo- one thing though, an yer prolly not ‘custumed to our colloquialisms,” Harleen said, “But in this country, it’s pronounced 'Floss-officery'." 

Kara, Jessica, Zee, and Karen immediately grimaced.

“That is good to know,” Diana said. She tilted her head to the side. “Though I’m sure at least 50% of the people I have conversed with have pronounced it the same way it is pronounced in my native greek: φιλοσοφία,” she said that last part with a tone of voice that seemed more natural, and it did sound like ‘Philosophia” in English.

Diana smirked to herself with latent nationalistic pride. “The Greeks do appear to have invented it.” 

“Oh, sure, we’ve got a lot of Europeans in Metropolis,” Harleen said, “So there’s people who’ll pronounce it that way, but over the past 50 years it’s been combined with the middle American concept of the ‘Floss Officer’; someone who in charge of offering you floss.” 

“I see,” Diana said. She nodded, sagely, in a way that suggested she firmly believed she understood. 

“But the concept arises because floss is something you use to clean the gunk between your teeth,” Harleen said, “And similarly, a Floss-officer helps you clean the gunk between your ideas. In the past few decades, the etymologies have converged.” 

Kara, Jessica, Zee, and Karen turned to Barbara, because Diana always trusted Barbara’s clarification of idioms. 

Barbara turned to Harleen, who winked at her. 

“She’s right,” Barbara said, to Diana, in all seriousness. “We pronounce it ‘Floss-officery’ here.” 

Barbara made a mental note to do so in front of Diana from now on. 

Kara, Jessica, Zee, and Kara suppressed groans. 

Harleen beamed at her. She slung an arm around her oldest friend and winked. Barbara returned the wink, and the smile.

“Well, um,” Karen said (and Barbara made a note to congratulate her on trying to start a conversation, later), “Do you, um, do you watch Anime?” 

Harleen smirked and shot finger guns at Karen. "Eyyy. Yes, but only Anime from Texas.” 

Karen blinked. "What?”

Barbara laughed. "She's kidding. We do watch anime, but, ah-” she grimaced.

“It's mostly yaoi,” Harleen said, naturally, as if it wasn’t embarrassing or anything. 

Barbara coughed to try to cover the heat rising in her cheeks. “Or like, yaoi adjacent, sports or modern fantasy shows." 

(Diana pulled out her notepad and leaned over to ask Jessica what yaoi was and Barbara sure was glad she didn’t have to answer that.)

Harleen nodded, twice. “Definitely. Remember _DNAngel_?” 

“Yes,” Barbara said, to the middle distance. “Fondly…” 

Karen coughed. “Well, um, do you watch _My Hero Academia_?” 

“Oh,” Barbara began- 

“Wow, y'all are _really_ into superheroes, aincha?” Harleen said. 

Karen scrunched her mouth to the side. “Well-” 

“But nah,” Harleen said. She nodded at her. “We watched the superior western version; _OK K.O.!: let’s be heroes._ ” 

Barbara tried to suppress a laugh, to be diplomatic. 

Karen blinked. “What?”

Harleen waved her hand in an imaginary panorama in front of her. “Yah, its basically Boku no Hero for people who didn't like all sexual assault jokes, the constant undercutting of female achievement, the reduction of the main villain's motivations to biological determinism, and the fact that Deku and Bakugo never smooch.” 

Barbara laughed. “She's kidding, Karen. Buuut, like, I did find _Boku no Hero_ occasionally hard to watch because of the exaggerated sociopathy of the villains, the sexual assault jokes, and because Deku and Todoroki never smooch.”

“Plus the villains are all, just,” Harleen frowned as she pontificated in a small circle in front of her, “Like, sociopath child abuse serial killers and junk, so there’s no actual nuance to the idea of heroism that the show implicitly supports.” 

“Nah, see," Barbara said. She waved her hand across the air, "that's because the _Boku no Hero_ universe is post-scarcity. There's, like, literally someone who can transmute simple carbohydrates into complex elements and she's, like, not being contracted out to make plutonium rods or lithium ion batteries to produce free energy, which implies that other people have already done that.” She glanced to the side. “Plus there’s, like, construction superheros around and stuff.” 

Barbara continued. “And if the world can always provide for your basic needs, that means there’s no economic basis for crime, so the only people who become criminals are going to be people who actively reject the idea of peaceful society, which, does fit in with the rest of the show.” 

“Or people who are gender-nonconforming or have mental health disorders,” Harleen snarked. 

“Well, the _real_ reason is going to be because the author didn’t adequately consider the moral logistics of his superhero universe, and then because the literal first villain in the show is game for multiple counts of child murder, the narrative structure of the long-term story means that you gotta escalate the villains each time until they’re all, like, people who permanently brain damage children to be mutated child soldiers to destroy the world.” 

Harleen exhaled. “See, that’s not a defense, if the reason the moral framework of your superhero cartoon relies on the villains being, just, irredeemably evil, is because you failed to plan ahead the first time.” 

“And _also_ ,” Harleen said, “Didn’t at one point, the heroes, like, buy clothes? When the transmuter lady was in their party?”

“Momo,” Karen interjected.

“Yeah! And she specifically said she didn’t want to impact the economy by creating money or clothes with her ability to violate the second law of thermodynamics. So money is still a thing in that universe.” 

“Being post-scarcity doesn’t mean there’s no money,” Barbara said, “It could be that there’s still a luxury economy so that people can still try to one-up each other with wealth and status, but since there’s occasionally people who can at no-cost provide essential resources, wouldn’t society structure itself around around providing a minimum living standard for everyone?”

“It’s cute that you think that,” Harleen said. Then she blinked and turned to Karen, “I'm sorry, we haven’t really been trying to include you in this conversation. I’d love to hear what you think?” 

“I, um," Karen said, "I mostly watch it for the character interactions…” 

“Oh,” Harleen said. She scrunched her mouth and glanced at the table, for a moment, before refreshing her smile. “They’re- they’re not bad. Right Babsy?”

In other context Barbara would have made a joke about the lack of boy smooches but she figured that'd just cause more problems with Diana. 

“So, who’s, your favorite hero?” Karen said. 

“Definitely Hagakure,” Harleen said. She leaned back and crossed her arms and closed her left eye. “And you can tell it’s true because I bothered to remember her name.” 

Karen’s mouth froze open. “Ah- really?” 

Barbara laughed. “Now you’re just trolling.” 

Harleen smirked. “Maybe the trolling is _why_ she’s my favorite.” 

Karen opened her mouth, and then closed it, presumably because she didn’t have anything to say about the literally invisible character with no personality on her favorite show. 

“Ah- Hey, Kara,” Barbara said, to try to salvage the conversation again, “Why don’t you tell us what kind of music you like-”

Harleen refreshed her smile. “Oo, yeah, you’re into punk rock, right?” 

Kara smiled. “I’ve been into this punk rock band called [popular anarcho-punk band],” 

Harleen blinked. “Ah.” 

Kara frowned. “Why, you don’t like them?” 

“I meeeeaaaannn,” Harleen said, “ They’re, kind of a huge sellout, right? Like, you own their ‘merch’ even, which you probably bought from a retailer for a ton of money?” 

Kara shrugged. “I like their songs.” 

“But not, like,” Harleen said, “What they’re songs are about? Because they sing about anarchy but they’re also, like, employed by a big record-label and sing their songs in large concert halls that charge massivw amounts of rent and therefore an equivalent ticket cost?" 

Kara frowned. “Is that a bad thing?” 

Harleen refreshed her smile, “Well, I guess it’s, totally fine ta just be infatuated with the punk aesthetic as a personal desire to be free from consequence rather than a coherent ideology espousing dissatisfaction with the way that powerful groups use conformity as a means of control.” 

Kara blinked. “Um.” 

“And I guessssss it’s to be expected that people can be seduced by the external trappings of the idea of anti-establishment rhetoric, that’s just been co-opted by the very forces they purport to fight against in order to quell dissent by selling a facsimile of anarchism as an outlet for the disenfranchised so they can vicariously live out their anti-establishment tendencies without actually threatening established power structures?” 

Kara blinked again. “What?”

“Ahahaha,” Barbara said, “She’s saying she supports your decision.” 

“She’s actually calling you out on being fake because you probably don’t know better,” Jessica said. 

“No no, I'm not, like, Judging,” Harleen said. Then, under her breath, “- on purpose- But! Hey, I’ll, get you into _Tank Girl_ or Paulo Freire sometime.” 

“Anyway,” Harleen turned to Barbara, “ah notice that you get squeamish every time I mention boys."

Barbara felt herself visibly sweat. "Ah- is, that so?" 

"Yeeaaahhh," Harleen brought her face right in front of Barbara's, and she flattened her mouth and eyelids and grabbed her chin in an exaggerated investigator look. "Your eyes dilate slightly and you try to smile, and it's usually accompanied by a glance over at Diana." 

Diana blinked. "Is this so, Barbara?" 

"So do you not want me to talk about boys or anything?" Harleen said. "Did Diana go through a bad breakup or something? Did her dad pull a Cosby or-” 

Barbara hugged her best friend’s head, (partially to try to prevent her from finishing that thought.) She inhaled through closed teeth. "I guess there's no keeping secrets from you, Leeny-beanie," she said. 

Barbara released the hug. "Diana is actually from an all-female culture, and we're trying to make sure she doesn’t get confused at the concept of gender-” 

"Wait, really?" Harleen said. She stood up in her seat. 

“Yes,” Diana said. “I am from a Greek island that, apparently, doesn’t have any of your weird human ‘boys’-” 

Luckily, Harleen interrupted Diana before Barbara was forced to come up with some sort of lie. 

"So like," Harleen said, "Ya probably don't have any of the subconscious impostor syndrome or a lingering sense that your role in society is to prop up other people- particularly men- or have yous worth primarily determined by your appearance?" 

Diana blinked. "I- don't know what those words mean.”

Harleen shot a finger gun at Barbara. "See? She doesn't know the _meaning_ of impostor syndrome!” 

"What's impostor syndrome?" Karen said. 

"Ah-" Barbara said, "Can you, make sure there's someone here with you when you look it up-” 

"So do you find that you're very popular with girls?" Harleen said, "because you're, like, an idealized version of us all, unburdened by subconcious doubt?” 

Diana smiled and closed her eyes and brought her hand to her chest. "I actually am very popular with girls. To the extent that I have found I’ve needed to become good at rejecting their amorous advances, in fact.” 

"ooo~," Harleen said, "I mean, I meant that platonically, but- does that mean you’re, just by virtue of living in an all-woman society, are you into women?” 

Diana tilted her head to the side “‘Into’ women?” 

Barbara froze. Zee became very interested in her nails. Kara and Jessica froze. Karen appeared to choke on her own spit. 

“Do you find women attractive, ‘s what that means," Harleen’s smile didn’t waver.

“In my experience women I find do not have any sort of attractive or repulsive field inherent to them, no,” Diana said. (Idly, Barbara wondered if any superheros she knew had an ability like that)

"But do you like looking at women?" Harleen said, not to be deterred. 

"Generally, yes," Diana stated. 

Jessica coughed. In the back of her mind, Barbara wondered if maybe it was actually just that easy, to ask if Diana wasn’t straight. 

"So among all of us, who do you think is the most pretty?" Harleen gestured to the table.

"Ah- _Harleen~_ " Barbara said. 

Harleen extricated herself from the chairs with a gymnastics backflip thing (but of course she was trying to show off, so she would climb out that way) and posed.

Diana smiled sagely. "That doesn’t matter, Harleen. The only person for whom it matters if you are beautiful, is yourself.” 

Harleen shot fingerguns at Diana. “Yeee. To quote american poet and floss-officer Melissa ‘Lizzo’ Jefferson: "You’re your own soulmate, and you aint never gonna hold you down.'” 

Barbara refrained from correcting the specifics on that one. 

Diana pulled out her notepad, “Interesting. We didn’t get to her in debate club yet.” 

“Sooo,” Harleen said, not to be deterred, “Do you like looking at women's breasts or butts more?”

Barbara died, temporarily. 

"Well, I suppose it depends on the individual,” Diana stated, “I have found myself appreciating well-curved buttocks or an ample bosom. Though consistently I find I appreciate well-toned thighs, as the body part i most enjoy looking at.” 

"Thick thighs save lives," Harleen said. She clicked her cheeks. "But thigh highs are my demise.” 

Diana nodded. “What does that mean?” 

“Oh!” Harleen pulled out her phone, “Well, see, there’s this concept of the concealment of attractive body parts being more tantalizing than simply a fully exposed part.” 

Harleen leaned her head aside, “I forget the exact psychological term for it but I’ll text it to you.”

“And so the idea is that,” Harleen continued, and she found a relevant picture online, “That, if legs are attr- pretty, you can make them appear _more_ pretty with socks- and the longer the socks, the greater the effect. And in certain internet circles people have rated the ratio of skin to sock/skirt with ratings from E to A or maybe S.” 

Diana nodded, slowly, at Harleen's phone.

Barbara's phone alarm buzzed, then. Since Harleen had only a limited amount of time to hang out Barbara didn’t want to lose track of time. 

“Ah, shizz- is it that time already?” Barbara said. “We didn’t even get the food-” 

Barbara pushed Harleen by the shoulders, from behind, towards the food court. “Is just the usual fine for you all?” she asked, rhetorically, to the rest of her friends. 

Either out of awkwardness, a desire to not prolong getting free (for them) food (that at least didn’t outweigh a desire for a change in routine), or because they all were genuinely fine with Barbara ordering all of them the default meals that she had put down in her notebook, everyone nodded. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


“Eyyyy girrrrlll~” Harleen said right as they got out of earshot. “Ah can pay for half of it, you don’t gotta treat them all on my behalf-”

“Heyyyy~” Barbara said. She hugged her oldest friend. “And it’s fine. This was my idea anyway. Thanks for making the time!” 

They got in line for the first food stand in the food court; burgers for Kara, Diana, and Harleen. “So, ah,” Barbara said. She rubbed the back of her head. “Is it weird to invite you to meet my new friend group?"

“Whaa~?” Harleen gasped in an exaggerated manner, “Nah, it’s perfectly normal!” 

“I mean, sure, statistically,” Barbara said, “But do, _you_ , think it’s weird to have you meet my new friend group?” 

“Ah- what, makes you ask that?” 

“Well it,” Barbara said. She grit her teeth. ‘It seems kind of like you’re trying to antagonize them? Like, you're deliberately pushing some of their buttons….” 

“Aw, well, you know me,” Harleen made a smile, “I do that. That’s what I do.” 

Harleen inhaled and exhaled, “But, if Ifn ya want me to, Ah can try to lay off a bit, though?”

“Would- ah,” Barbara said, “Would you mind too much?” 

Harleen saluted. “I’ll be on my best behavior once we get back. And the next time we meet up, I'll remember it too."

Barbara hugged her best friend. “And also- and this is totally my bad for not mentioning this beforehand, but- maybe, not bring up superheroes?” 

“Aw, but they’re my favorite thing to complain about!” Harleen said. 

Barbara tried to force her lip to quiver as she shot her best friend puppy dog eyes. 

“Ah can never resist ya, Babsy,” Harleen said. She hugged Barbara’s head. “Ah’ll find something else ta talk about.” 

“At least, like, until they all get to know you a little better,” Barbara swatted the air. “I know you don’t hate superheroes irl, but it might come across that way if you keep poking holes in the fictional ones.” 

"Yeeeeaaaaaaaahh……” Harleen drawled, all the way up until they finished picking up the food from this stall and got in line for the next one. “Your new friends are great, by the by, Babsy! You really hit the jackpot here!” 

Harleen pumped her arm. “And none of them are funny, so Ah don’t have any reason to feel threatened!” 

“You sure don’t,” Barbara said, open mouthed. She shot finger guns at Harleen. 

  
\-----

Barbara appreciated that Harleen minimized the amount of arguments after they got back to the table with their food. But they also only had 10 minutes to eat before Harleen had to meet her boyfriend at the docks for an afternoon date.   
  
  


\---

  
  
  
  
  


"Alright, team debrief," Barbara said, after she finished franticlaly waving her arms goodbye to Harleen until the latter went out of eyeshot. She stood up, to evoke authority. 

She inhaled, and then smiled. "I think you girls all did great! This is, to my knowledge, the first outsider that's been introduced to our friend group, and it went mostly well." 

"And on a personal level; Harleen is my b- my oldest best friend," Barbara smiled, gently, at the ground, "So it really means a lot that you all got along with her!" 

Barbara scrunched her mouth to the side. "But that might be more of a 'friend' thing rather than a 'team' thing.- Anyway-" 

Barbara allowed herself a frown. "So I know that there's a magical veil that prevents anyone from figuring out your secret identity unless you outright tell them or if they see you Switch," Barbara said, primarily to Diana and Kara, "But can we, maybe, _not_ , try to test the extent it works?" 

Kara blinked a few times. "What? why are you looking at me?" 

Diana frowned, slightly. "Well, you cannot expect me to know which of your mortal customs I am not aware of. That's the whole conceit of epistemological ignorance-"

"Well, I guess I'm also somewhat to blame, since I've been putting off trying to adequately explain the concept of gender to you," Barbara shrugged, "As well as, like, American political systems and youth culture." 

"We can all try to do some extra socialization outings with her, if you think that will help?" Jessica said. 

"Yeah, that might be a good idea," Barbara said, "And we can hang out more in general." she turned to Diana, "But only if you're up for turning our group hangs into a study session, Di." 

Diana stood up straight and clenched her jaw and hit the left side of her torso with her right fist. "I am no stranger to training." 

"But also, maybe," Barbara said, "Not, mention so much, that you're a mythical homunculus forged from clay and all that? Maybe, you can pretend you were just born in Greece 16 years ago?"

"And cut from my gestational parents abdomen as a writhing flesh pupae with the supervision of a Stork, yes," Diana said. She nodded, as if she firmly believed she understood. 

Barbara smushed her lips together. "That's, better, than the alternative I guess." 

"And _Kara_ ," Barbara said, "maybe, you can, like, _not_ advertise that you eat sunlight and are from a, like, technologically predestined caste-system." 

"What?” Kara said, “Is that weird here?

“Uuuh,” Barbara said, “Yes.” 

Kara scrunched her mouth to the side. “Hmmm….” 

"And-," Barbara glanced out into the distance, and then took a seat. "Yeah, I think that's it for team stuff. Anyway, as the leader of our friend group, let's do a debrieifing from _that_ side-" 

"Wait, why are _you_ the leader of our friend group?" Kara said, "You're already the superhero team leader, why are you also the friend leader?” 

"First of all - I'm pretty sure Diana’s the superhero team leader?” Barbara glanced over to the relevant friend. 

“Only in battle,” Diana said. She nodded sagely. “But I defer to our superior technology warlock for communication and navigation purposes.” 

“Yeah, just cuz I send you all the map and head the chats, it doesn’t mean I’m the leader,” Barbara said, “But that’s not itself relevant to why im the friend group alpha, which is because I'm _somehow_ ," Barbara emphasized that word, "The best socialized out of all of us." 

Despite being a huge dweeb who only had one friend for most of her life, she didn't say. 

"Diana and Kara are from completely different cultures, Karen's afraid of strangers and of giving orders, and Jessica's willing to fight any bully at the drop of a hat.” 

“Fair,” Jessica said. 

"Oh, hey, you didn't mention me," Zee said. She waved a hand through her hair. "Perhaps that suggests I would be a good candidate~?"

"You know what?" Barbara said, "go for it. I will defer to you to be friend group Alpha if you wish.” 

Zee blinked, a few times. "I, - okay, sure!" She refreshed her smile. "That means, I just, tell everyone where we meet for things, and I decide what we do, right?"

"And coordinate schedules," Barbara said. 

“Sounds like a dream,” Zee said. “Look forward to my reign of resplendent stewardship over the Superhero Girls!" She waved her hands theatrically. 

"Aaannywayyy," Barbara said, "not as friend leader, but as one member of the friend democracy- can I ask how you all felt about Harleeeennn~ 

The rest of her friend group shared looks. 

"Do you all love her as much as she loves you?!?" Barbara said. She bounced on her feet. 

Jessica glanced at Diana. Diana looked between Kara and Karen and Zee. Zee looked off to the side. Kara scrunched her mouth together. 

“So I know that went off to a rocky start, but-” Barbara glanced at the wall, wistfully. “She’s my best friend, because we’re on the same wavelength and we’ve known each other forever." 

“But she’s also really kind and caring and she’s observant and she’s always willing to help- that’s why she’s training to be a psychologist-” 

Barbara took a deep breath. “And, I don’t know what my life would be like without her.” 

Jessica, Kara, Zee, and Karen looked to Diana. 

"She's- great," Diana said. She nodded, twice, with finality. 

Barbara exhaled a sigh of relief. “Phew! I know she's busy a lot- especially with the new boyfriend- but I've invited her to _all_ our further mall outings and she's confident she can make at least half of them!" 

Kara sounded like she was groaning, but then it turned out she was just coughing. 

Barbara turned to Zee, “So, make sure you add those into your plans.” 

Zee made a smile. “Ah. Yes.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
OMAKE 1:   
  
  


"Hey, Barbara," Diana said, one day at lunch, "how do i use my phone to look up pictures of of women in 'thigh-high's? Like how your friend did, the other day?" 

Barbara's lungs deflated through her mouth in groan, because she was pretty sure she was going to have to explain safe internet porn search practices to a 300 year old mythical homunculus. 

"Did you ask your mom what sex was, yet?" Barbara tilted her head to the side. 

Diana made a face. "She changed the subject when I asked her- wait, is this, a 'sex' thing?" 

Barbara deflated in slow motion. “Maybe, you should try to contact your mother again?” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


OMAKE 2: 

One night, Karen called Barbara. 

"Oh my god," Karen sobbed from her end of the line, "I- I think I have impostor syndrome!" 

Barbara sighed and adjusted her phone under her right shoulder. "Did- did you look this up on your own? Alone?" 

“I- yes-” 

“Well that’s, fine. I’ll send someone over?" Barbara said. "Or Zee will?"

“I- I don’t know if I deserve the sympathy-” 

Barbara suppressed the urge to sigh. “Hey, Karen, it’s okay. Impostor Syndrome is- “ She glanced at her laptop screen.

“‘s a pathological pattern where one doubts one’s accomplishments an’ has a persistent internalized fear of being ‘discovered’ as a ‘fraud’,” Harleen said, from the screen, into Barbara’s left earbud. 

“It’s a state of mind,” Barbara said into her phone. 

“- an if she’s actually telling ya she’s worried she has it it’s probably just general insecurity,” Harleen said. 

“It looks like Diana doesn’t sleep and Kara can just, zoom to your house,” Barbara said as she checked the group DMs. Harleen would assume she was soeaking in metapbor, “Is that fine?" 

"Y- yeah..." 

“And remember Karen,” Barbara tried to channel her inner hero and also latently hoped she hadn’t seen _The Lego Movie,_ “The only thing you need to be special, is to believe that you are.” 

Karen took a deep breath, or at least that’s what it sounded like. “Okay. Thanks Barbara.” 

“No problem,” Barbara said. She hung up and turned to her laptop. “Sorry about that. What were we talking about?” 

“Ah don’t remember.” 

“Are you just saying that because you were losing the argument?” 

Harleen stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. “Maaybeee~” 

“Anyway, I’m good to watch the next episode if you are?” Barbara said. 

“Sure, ah don’t need to be up early tomarrer,” Harleen said, “And Ahm scheduled to spend next Thursday with Arthur so it’d be good to double up tonight…” 

  
  


  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Certain White Wolf rpgs have the 'magical field where nobody can piece together your secret identity, even if you don't do anything to hide your face or voice, unless you tell them or they see you transform' conceit, and I like to headcanon that that's what's happening in DCshg19, even if the Invincibros arc outright contradicts that headcanon, but then again, this fic is more like, a fanfic based on the first like 10 episodes of the show, with random elements of broader DC lore. Either way, I will claim external precedent to avoid having to defend my beliefs on their own merits.
> 
> There'll be more, superheroic-adjacent things, and also more Pamela, in the next chapter.


	4. Recovering From Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harleen interacts with Jessica and then with Ivy. The Superhero Girls talk about Diana behind her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most named characters are property of Difficulty Class 'DC' Comics. Also, my apologies to Zach Weinersmith.
> 
> I guarantee no expertise in or even basic correct knowledge of, DC's superhero universe, friendship, etymology, vegetarianism, philosophy, psychology, card games, cats, or correct English grammar.
> 
> I had thought that *Watchmen*, while owned by DC, was lore-wise not connected at all from the main canon, but then someone made me aware of Doomsday Clock and I was like, god dammit. At least Boku no Hero is unlikely to cross-over with DC anytime soon.
> 
> Also, I realize that depicting heroes and villains talk about philosophy, and then moral philosophy, will inevitably come across as passing judgement upon certain lifestyles. I don't mean to do that: I merely tried to write characters who seem to subscribe to specific philosophies in conversation with each other. Personally I blame the show for depicting Jessica as some kind of, hyperbolic parody of environmentalists and me just, running with that. I don't actually think eating meat or not eating meat is inherently indicative of your moral character.

As soon as her unofficial guide to the realm of Man left with her most superlative friend to procure food for them all, Diana called an impromptu meeting of the team.

She was the leader when the situation called for battle strategy and the floss-officery (as the mortals called it, apparently) of Heroism, but if their standard social situation leader was out of commission, Diana was set to take the helm of their adrift vessel of friendship. 

“Alright girls," Diana spake, with the gravitas afforded by her rank and her heritage, “I can tell that the previous events weigh heavily on your minds, and I invite you to be candid for the duration of time that we are alone, for we are all friends here-.” 

And as suddenly as a flood from a breached dyke, her teammates started spewing forth their grievances. 

“Clearly Harleen doesn’t know the first thing about public performance,” Zee of the Zatara line folded her arms. 

“What does _she_ know about anarchy?” Kara of house El said. “I’m a _total_ anarchist.” 

Karen Beecher mumbled to the table. “I can’t believe she ships Deku with Bakugo…”

"She was very argumentative, did you notice?" Kara said.

Diana nodded, slowly, to indicate she understood. “I want to bring forth the fact that most of her humour involved suffering, and that I find her attitude towards Superheros to be very troubling.” 

Her friends and teammates nodded, solemnly, in agreement. 

“And Barbara didn’t even give us a chance to respond,” Jessica Cruz, rookie officer of the Pan-Galactic Limelight Law Enforcement Agency, said. “I'm sure I could have thought of something that wouldn’t incriminate any of our identities as superheroes.” 

“Well, we don’t really need to worry about that unless you outright tell her,” Kara of House El said, “Probably.” 

Zee of the Zatara Line coughed. “It’s kind of weird that Barbara is friends with someone who’s so against the idea of superheroes. You know, considering she dresses up like a bat and fights crime at night.” 

Karen Beecher tilted her head to the side. “Maybe that implies that Harleen was actually only saying that to troll us? Barbara did warn us about that.” 

“She made some logically sound arguments, though.” Rookie Officer Jessica Cruz said. “It’s clear she’s thought about it.” 

“That doesn’t necessarily preclude her saying it to troll us,” Karen said. 

“So,” Diana said, “Are we in agreement that we all loathe Barbara's friend and would not appreciate her company, in the future?” She personally didn't feel that strongly about the situation, but the rest of her team was obviously discomfortable during the previous proceedings (perhaps it was a nuance of human culture that Diana had yet to understand?) and Diana would, of course, accommodate the needs of the majority.

Her teammates paused to cogitate. 

“Well,” Zee of the Zatara line said, “That’s a _little_ far.” 

“And loath is a strong word," Jessica Cruz said. She winced. "We simply, had an exclusively negative experience with her and we don’t have any particular reason to believe that will be different in additional cases.” 

"But she's Barbara's best friend," Karen Beecher said, "Are we afraid that she’ll stop being friends with us if we try to make her choose?” 

There were murmurs from her teammates. 

"Friend Barbara wanted this team more than any of us," Diana said. "I'm sure that she wouldn’t so carelessly discard her heroic destiny.” 

“Besides, she already spends a significant amount of time with her ‘Gotham City Best Friend’,” Diana took great care to pronounce that formal term in the correct way, and her teammates nonverbally indicated that she did, “So I’m sure Friend Barbara will be able to keep her friendship intact even if she cannot bring Harleen along when she hangs out with us.” 

"Well," Zee of the Zatara line said. She looked at her nails, "We can't blame a girl for wanting it all. Barb's got her bestie, who she shares memes with, her school group which is also her superhero group, which she hangs around for 8 hours a day pretending to learn and also moonlights as a vigilante with, and also hangs out with during a lot of her free time. And on top of that, she's got her job, and she's got a great relationship with her dad that she occasionally needs to devote time to.” 

Diana nodded. 

“And true friends are the ones that understand that you may have other things going on, and will accept that,” Zee Zatara said. 

Karen Beecher made an expression. “But, then, shouldn’t we treat her the same way?” 

“It does feel weird that our plan would rely on Harleen to be a more accommodating friend than us,” Jessica Cruz said, “ And I do notice that we take up a very large portion of her time." 

"Well, I think we take up more of her energy, rather than her time,” Karen Beecher said, “I don’t think she’s ever said that her Burrito Bucket job ever felt draining or inconvenient, but being a superhero can be exhausting.” 

Diana observed her friends for the unspoken feelings they hid beneath the surface. “Are you suggesting that perhaps it is not fair for us to demand so much of our friend Barbara's time?" 

"I don't know if that's a helpful way to think about it," Jessica Cruz said. "Like, if she started having to put more time into her food service job, we'd probably all try to encourage her to not do that so much so much. Or possibly even quit, since she’s doing a lot more for the city by fighting crime than, selling fast food." 

“By that logic, we should also be willing to encourage her to spend more time away from her parent and her schoolwork,” Diana pointed out. 

Karen Beecher gazed intently at her hands. "I don't, really want to get in the way of her and Harleen. I never had a best friend before, but I wouldn’t want to get in the way of their bond.” 

Zee winced. Jessica nodded forlornly. “They do appear to be really good friends.” 

Diana nodded. While everyone she had ever been close to back on Themyscira indicated fondness, affection, and solidarity through candidness and zeal in training, from what she gathered of human friendships, the concept of a ‘best friend’ was different. 

“My dad and I were always traveling, so I never made any close friends,” Zee of the Zatara line said. 

Kara of House El inhaled and exhaled. "I wish I was closer to my sister. I get where Karen’s coming from.” 

Karen Beecher nodded. “I mean, I know some people on forums, but yeah…” 

“Sometimes I worry that I’m the only environmentalist in the city,” Jessica Cruz said. 

"Girls, we are all sisters in arms," Diana said. She pulled everyone in for a group hug, from the side, around the circular table. "As the saying goes, the blood shed together in battle is thicker than the water shared in the womb.” That saying made more sense now that Diana knew the specifics of gestation. 

"Is, that how that saying goes?”

“Yes,” Diana nodded, “Friend Barbara explained it to me, and that meaning is consistent with what I have heard from my upbringing.” 

Her team was silent as they pondered the profundity of her aphorism. Diana nodded. 

But then, before they were able to resume their conversation, Barbara Gorden, Girl of Bats, and Harleen Quinzel, Clown of the Class but also ‘Nerd’, returned with packages of commercially-prepared sustenance, individualized for each of them. The conversation turned into series of pleasantries as they all started consuming their food. 

* * *

“So, Jessica,” Harleen Quinzel said, while simultaneously masticating her food. It was rather unsightly. “Ah feel like you’ve been less talkative than the rest of Babsy’s friends, today.” 

“Oh? Have I been?” Jessica visibly pondered. 

“Eh, I could be wrong, and ah jest met ya,” Harleen said, “But, either way; how are you? _Why_ are you?” 

“Um,” Jessica Cruz said.

“Well you see, Harles,” Barbara Gordon said, “When two consenting adults of legal age find their ability to connect with each other is stalling, they try to revitalize their relationship with kids.” 

“Uhhh,” Jessica continued to emit.

Harleen pressed her palm, and her food, against her forehead. “Is _that_ where they come from?” 

“Specifically, they ask the Stork to implant a flesh pupae into the abdomen of the gestational parent for nine months, and afterwards the Stork returns to cut the infant out of her,“ Diana added, eager to demonstrate her newfound knowledge. It was nice to know that she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t known about the mechanics of conception until recently. 

Harleen stared at Diana intently with some kind of smirk. Her cheeks bulged out as she shifted the food into one side of her mouth. “Is- that so? 

Diana nodded, sagely. “It is.” 

Harleen swallowed, continuing to stare at Diana, and her smile widened, and then she slapped her head with her food, “Bluh, I was trying to talk with Jessica- I guess that’s why you seemed less talkative, Jess, since Diana here is just a fountain of fascinating conversation topics-"

Diana smiled at the compliment. “Why, thank you, friend Harleen-” 

“You’re very wel- JESSICA!” Harleen turned away from Diana, “I'm sorry again. So yer, a vegan, huh?” 

“I am…” Jessica Cruz said. She sounded wary. “Is this, so you can play Devil’s Advocate in a debate against veganism?”

“Whaa~ “ Harleen Quinzel gasped and clutched her cheeks, with her food still in her hand, “Would _I_ ever do that?” 

Barbara Gordon scrunched her mouth to the side. 

“Like,” Harleen pontificated with her food, “Who sees an argument, and on one side sees literarily the Devil, and says ‘ _That_ guy needs an advocate.’” 

Diana leaned to the side, towards Karen Beecher, who was historically very knowledgeable about Human Things. “What is the ‘Devil’?”

Before Karen Beecher could respond, Harleen Quinzel emitted a long, loud noise. “Ahhh, how am I supposed to ignore following up on that? Babsy, how did you get such interesting friends?” 

Diana blinked. Barbara smiled and shrugged, theatrically, since her mouth was full of food.

“So Jess. Jessie. Jess-bear.”

“Don’t call me-” Jessica started to say-

“Why are you vegan?” Harleen Quinzel said. To her side, unseen, Barbara Gordon tried to make some more of the gestures she had been making the whole conversation, mostly which involved laterally waving her hands. 

“Well,” Jessica Cruz said, seemingly unfazed, “Philosophically-”

“Floss-officierally,” Diana corrected. Harleen shot her the human gesture of approval: a fist that has the thumb pointing upwards.

“There’s three main schools of thought on what is considered moral," Jessica continued, "Virtue Ethics, which is doing things that are morally upstanding for you as an individual; Deontology, which is doing things that are by their nature morally correct; and Consequentialism, which is doing things that will result in a moral state."

Diana nodded. This had been covered in Debate club the previous week, but friend Jessica seemed to be already familiar with the concepts.

“From a Virtue Ethics point of view, I’m a vegan because it’s healthier.” 

“I’ve heard that,” Harleen said, “But aren’t, like, humans omnivores? Where are you gonna get all your nutrients?” 

Jessica Cruz smiled. “Actually, the spectrum of plant foods contain all the components your body needs to make all of the complex proteins and amino acids you need.” 

She pontificated with her hand. “The world record holder for some of the multitude of strength-based athletic challenges is a vegan, and he says, ‘You know how you become strong as an ox without’ - Wait,” Jessica Cruz furrowed her brow and looked into the middle distance.

She chewed her food for a little bit. “It’s, you need to ask him, ‘How are you gonna be as strong as an ox if you don’t eat meat?’ And he answers, ‘when was the last time you saw an ox eating meat?’” 

Harleen performed, towards Jessica, that human gesture where you curled three of your fingers together but stuck out your thumb and first finger to convey approval. “Points for trying. Ah practice my one-liner delivery every morning in tha mirror, ta stay in shape.” 

“She also stays in shape the literal way, also by practicing every day,” Barbara Gordon added. Harleen, without looking, performed the human gesture of mutual approval that involved impacting the palms of two people against each other. 

“Anyway," Jessica continued, "Human biology can certainly digest meat into all the essential amino acids more efficiently than manufacturing it from raw plant matter, but you can still get, like, iron from broccoli and protein from nuts. Incidentally, that’s why weight loss diets tend to involve more meat, and muscle-building ones tend to have a lot of peanut-butter.” 

“What about the other modes of floss-officery?” Harleen said. Diana made note of the pronunciation, for future reference. 

“They’re a little entwined, I think,” Jessica continued. “Like, I consider the meat industry to be a cruel institution, so from a consequentialist perspective, refusing to eat meat reduces the demand for the meat industry, and from a Deontological perspective, I am refusing to partake in cruelty.” 

“But like, humans are omnivores, so wouldn’t eating meat just be natural for us?” 

Jessica smiled. She leaned forward over the table. “That is true historically, but nowadays, most meat comes from factory farms, which are a whole litany of cruel practices in the relentless pursuit of profit.” 

“Like, in modern factory farms, cows spend their whole lives in confined cages and don't eat grass; usually its special feed mixed with slaughterhouse runoff or actual garbage- and that's where Mad Cow Disease comes from. And many cows are infected with E. Coli so most beef has to be doused in ammonia before it's ready for human consumption.” 

Karen Beecher scrunched her mouth to the side and placed the remains of her ground beef taco on her paper plate. 

“And chickens are kept their whole lives in these cages that are only slightly bigger than them. Except that in most modern chicken farms, they stuff _four_ chickens per cage, to maximize profits.” 

“And normally chickens won’t accept that; they’ll kill each other to be able to live comfortably, so factory farms will chop off the legs and beaks of chickens at birth so that they can quadruple up on them in the infrastructure.” 

Zee of the Zatara line put down her last breaded chicken strip. 

“Gotcha,” Harleen said. She finished eating her food. “So, if the whole world embraced cruelty-free farming techniques, you'd eat meat?"

“Well, if that were the case, I personally wouldn’t eat meat, for that first reason, but I wouldn’t protest the meat industry.” Jessica Cruz nodded. 

“And if Peter Singer were incapable of pain,” Harleen reached over the table to grab Zee and Karen’s leftovers. “(You gonna eat those?) Would it be acceptable to eat him?” 

“Only if he were a free-range, grass-fed Peter Singer,” Barbara Gordon said. Diana made a mental note of this exception to the mortal prohibition on cannibalism. 

Jessica’s expression flattened. “You know who Peter Singer is? Was this just a ploy to get Zee and Karen’s food?” 

“Wha~” Directly after Zee and Karen shook their heads, Harleen consumed their food. “Would _I_ do that~,” she enunciated around the food in her mouth. 

“But seriously, I _am_ interested in all of Babsy’s friends. You’re a very eclectic group. Like, my boyfriend and only new friend back in Gotham, are very similar to me in a lot of ways, and Babs and I are basically the same person.” 

“Except in your taste in makeup, and literally every ship,” Barbara Gordon said. Diana herself had yet to form an opinion on nautical vehicles, but it was good to know that it was still possible to be superlative friends even if your opinions on the subject matter differed.

“But honestly, Jess-Jess. Jess-bear. It’s fascinating, this subject matter. We should talk about this again the next time we eat lunch,” Harleen Quinzel said. 

Kara of house El made a groaning noise. 

Jessica didn’t react. “Okay, so, would you consider giving up meat, or possibly buying only meat from cruelty-free sources?” 

“Nah,” Harleen said, immediately, with a sense of finality. 

Jessica blinked. “But- if you’re familiar with Singer’s writings, and you are against animal cruelty, wouldn't you at least, try to make a change? If price is an issue, then you know know that a lot of vegetarian diets are very affordable."

“Well, the thing is, most people don’t really care about being virtuous.” Harleen painted an imaginary panorama with her hand. “That’s why everyone thinks serial killers are sexy, or go for the Yandere routes, and why Disney Villains are more popular than the protagonists - all hail the Mouse.” Harleen performed a strange gesture with her hands, at her chest area, as she intoned the last part. 

“All Hail the Mouse,” Barbara Gordon repeated the solemn prayer. Diana tried to memorize the gesture to follow the social cue the next time it came up.

“See, most people want to indulge in power fantasies, but many of them want to think of themselves as humble and grounded enough to not fantasize about being rock stars and movie gods.” Harleen performed an elaborate pantomime that failed to elucidate her words at all. “So instead of, like, wanting to have phenomenal cosmic power and dressing up in their pajamas to run around the city at night, they dream about being just special enough for rules to not apply to them.”

“But rules exist to keep us safe,” Kara of House El said. 

“Sure, but the thing is, most people don’t want to break the rules about, like, murder or anything,” Harleen said. “Like, when you go to the aquarium for the school trip and you see the sign that says ‘don’t touch the starfish’, you actually want to touch the starfish, cuz they feel cool and weird.” 

Harleen leaned back in her seat and looked at the wall. “Like, it’s a sort of prickly leathery sensation but if you’re touching it underwater, its also a little slippery?”

“And sure, if everyone touched the starfish, they’d contaminate the enclosure to the point where it would negatively impact the starfish’s health. So it has to be _only_ you who is allowed to touch the starfish. But that’s just another component of human psychology: Humans don’t really have an objective sense of our own happiness, only to see how we are in contrast to other humans. So most humans seek to achieve happiness by merely having better circumstances than their neighbors, and being a villain is a straightforward route to achieve that, hence why villains are so popular.”

Diana glanced around at the rest of her team, who seemed to share her own sense of concern.

“So!” Harleen concluded. “That’s the appeal of villainy; to feel more special than normal but still confident in your own judgement that you don’t see anything wrong with yourself breaking rules. To touch the starfish. And in this case, it means continuing to eat evil-meat, but still being vaguely in support of more enlightened meat processing techniques." 

Diana spoke up. “Is that really what humans believe?”

Jessica mumbled something under her breath. Barbara Gordon waved her arms in front of Harleen’s face. “Oh, don’t mind her, girls. She’s still just latently on a rant about anime villains.” 

Karen Beecher scrunched her mouth to the side. 

And as the saying went, ‘The Bell had been their Savior’, because Harleen Quinzel’s glowing rectangle best friend made an electronic noise, which turned out to mean she had run out of time for lunch. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


“Alright,” Barbara Gordon, Girl of Bats, said as she returned from walking her friend to the human subterranean locomotion system."Team debrief: I think you girls all did great! This is, to my knowledge, the first outsider that's been introduced to our friend group, and it went mostly well." 

Diana glanced askance. 

"And on a personal level; Harleen is my b- my oldest best friend," Barbara Gordon said to the ground, "So it really means a lot that you all got along with her! But that might be more of a 'friend' thing rather than a 'team' thing.- Anyway-" 

Barbara Gordon’s expression turned sour and she looked between Diana and Kara of House El. "So I know that there's a magical veil that prevents anyone from figuring out your secret identity unless you outright tell them or if they see you Switch, but can we, maybe, _not_ , try to test the extent it works?" 

Kara of house El protested. "What? why are you looking at me?" 

Diana kept her face neutral. "Well, you cannot expect me to know which of your mortal customs I am not aware of. That's the whole conceit of epistemological ignorance-"

"Well, I guess I'm also somewhat to blame, since I've been putting off trying to adequately explain the concept of gender to you," Barbara shrugged, "As well as, like, American political systems and youth culture." 

"We can all try to do some extra socialization outings with her, if you think that will help?" Jessica said. 

"Yeah, that might be a good idea," Barbara said, "And we can hang out more in general." she turned to Diana, "But only if you're up for turning our group hangs into a study session, Di." 

Diana stood up straight and gave a warrior’s salute. "I am no stranger to training." 

"But also, maybe," Barbara Gordon said, "Not, mention so much, that you're a mythical humunculus forged from clay and all that? Maybe, you can pretend you were just born in Greece 16 years ago?"

"And cut from my gestational parents abdomen as a writhing flesh pupae with the supervision of a Stork, yes," Diana said. She nodded. 

Barbara Gordon smushed her lips together. "That's, better, than the alternative I guess." 

Diana nodded at the endorsement of her proposal. 

"And Kara," Barbara said, "Maybe, you can, like, _not_ advertise that you eat sunlight and are from a, like, technologically predestined caste-system." 

"What?” Kara of house El said, “Is that weird here?"

“Uuuh,” Barbara Gordon said, “Yes.” 

The Kryptonian scrunched her mouth to the side. “Hmmm….” 

"And-," Barbara Gordon glanced out into the distance, and then took a seat. "Yeah, I think that's it for team stuff. Anyway, as the leader of our friend group, let's do a debriefing from _that_ side-" 

"Wait, why are _you_ the leader of our friend group?" Kara said, "You're already the superhero team leader, why are you also the friend leader?” 

Diana was about to say something, but Barbara preempted her.

"First of all - I'm pretty sure Diana’s the superhero team leader?” Barbara glanced over to her in deference. 

“Only in battle,” Diana said. She nodded as she reminisced about her leadership prowess. “But I defer to our superior technology warlock for communication and navigation purposes.” 

“Yeah, just cuz I send you all the map and head the chats, it doesn’t mean I’m the leader,” Barbara Gordon said, “But that’s not itself relevant to why im the friend group alpha, which is because I'm _somehow_ the best socialized out of all of us." 

Barbara Gordon waved her hand across the air in the human gesture that meant she was moving onto the next topic of conversation. "Diana and Kara are from completely different cultures, Karen's afraid of strangers and of giving orders, and Jessica's willing to fight any bully at the drop of a hat.” 

“Fair,” Jessica said. It did make sense, considering her current career in intergalactic law enforcement.

"Oh, hey, you didn't mention me," Zee of the Zataras said. "Perhaps that suggests I would be a good candidate~?"

"You know what?" Barbara Gordon said, "go for it. I will defer to you to be friend group Alpha if you wish.” 

From context, Diana figured ‘alpha’ meant 'leader'. It made sense that they would be using ancient Greek letters to denote hierarchies.

Zee of the Zataras blinked. "I, - okay, sure! That means, I just, tell everyone where we meet for things, and I decide what we do, right?"

"And coordinate schedules," Barbara Gordon said. 

“Sounds like a dream,” Zee said. “Look forward to my reign of resplendent stewardship over the Superhero Girls!" She waved her hands theatrically. 

"Aaannywayyy," Barbara said, "not as friend leader, but as one member of the friend democracy- can I ask how you all felt about Harleeeennn~" 

Diana looked between her friends. Many of them did the same. 

"Do you all love her as much as she loves you?!?" Barbara Gordon exclaimed. 

Jessica Cruz glanced at Diana. Diana looked between the other three members of the group, who were all avoiding eye contact. 

“So I know that went off to a rocky start, but-” Barbara glanced at the wall, wistfully. “She’s my best friend, because we’re on the same wavelength and we’ve known each other forever." 

Diana felt guilt. 

“But she’s also really kind and caring and she’s observant and she’s always willing to help- that’s why she’s training to be a psychologist- and, ah, I don’t know what my life would be like without her.” 

Jessica, Kara, Zee, and Karen looked to Diana. 

Well, the honest thing would be to convey the concerns the team had expressed prior, but come to think of it, they hadn't actually come to a consensus on a course of action.

So Diana made a decision on behalf of her friends, to spare Barbara Gordon her feelings. 

"She's- great," Diana said. She nodded, twice, to try to give credence to the lie. 

Barbara exhaled a sigh of relief. “Phew! I know she's busy a lot- especially with the new boyfriend- but I've invited her to all our further mall outings and she's confident she can make at least half of them!" 

Kara of House El groaned, but tried to cover it with a fake cough.

Barbara turned to Zee, “So, make sure you add those into your plans.” 

Zee made a smile. “Ah. Yes.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“So,” Jessica Cruz said, ”You interrupted us all when Harleen tried to make philosophical points against the fundamental nature of superheros.”

“OH! Aha,” Barbara Gordon laughed. She swatted the air with her hand. “Nah, Harles just likes to say that to mess with people. And also because we keep watching cartoons that seem to latently endorse authoritarian power structures and the use of force to resolve conflict.” 

Karen opened her mouth, but was too slow to say anything.

“SO!” Barbara said, suddenly, “Fun fact; the original researcher who originally reported on the tendency for wolves to elect an Alpha and Beta did a follow up study years later, and found that the phenomenon only appears in wolves raised in activity.” 

Diana didn’t entirely understand the context for the words Barbara was saying, but the humans at the table nodded, so Diana did as well. 

“It turns out that wild wolf packs seem to congregate around the largest male and female wolf of the pack,” Barbara said, “Because those are the parents of the rest of the wolves.” 

“So calling you the Friend Alpha would make sense because we’re not a family, and this is an entirely constructed arrangement that we’re entering into,” 

“Oh! I understand now,” Diana said. “Friend Zee is attempting to be the surrogate mother of our friend group.” 

Zee of the Zatara line coughed. Karen Beecher appeared to choke on her beverage. Kara of house El started laughing. 

“I mean, if you want to think of it that way, I guess it’s fine,” Zee shrugged. “So, what do we want to spend the afternoon doing?”

  
  


* * *

OMAKE: 

“Oh hey Barbara,” Kara said, as Barbara was walking past her in the hallways, at school one day. Barbara hadn’t actually noticed Kara until that moment. 

“Hey Kara,” Barbara said. Kara was leaned back against the wall, with a thick book in front of her. She was obviously trying to look simultaneously cool and engrossed in her book, which she occasionally shook to draw attention to it. 

“So, whatcha readin~” Barbara said, because she had no reason not to play along. Obviously she could tell that it was an anarchist's biography. 

“Oh you know,” Kara said. She blew some hair out of her eyes. “Just stuff i always read. Things about how society is dumb and bad and that the only hope for long-term efficacy in societal infrastructure is anarchic revolution en masse.” 

“Right on,” Barbara said. “I’m impressed you pronounced ‘efficacy’ 80% correctly, but you pronounce that last bit ‘änˈmas’. But, if you actually want to be an anarchist, maybe you should be looking at Bakunin’s actual writings rather than just a third party’s biography of his life.” 

“Uh,” Kara turned the book to its cover and appeared to, for the first time, actually read its title. 

“Or, you know,” Barbara shrugged deliberately, “You could just, not care about what Harleen said, and simply enjoy your favorite band without feeling the need to pretend that liking them is some edgy political statement.” 

“Psh- wha~” Kara said. She coughed. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

It was lunchtime at Gotham High. 

Harleen inhaled and then exhaled. She was doing a lot, and was low-key exhausted all the time, but that’s what living felt like. She had a best friend who was always there for her, she had a boyfriend, she had a burgeoning supervillain career, and also she had a school friend that she really connected with, who was also like a sort of, staging ground for her interpersonal skills. 

After cutting the line to grab a tray of, suspicious mashed potatoes and lunchmeat, Harleen made her way out to the outdoor seating to find her lunch-buddy (since Arthur had a different lunch period), eating her sack lunch. 

“Hey there giirrrlllll~” Harleen said. She placed her tray on the decaying wooden table and scootched up to Pamela and put an arm around the redhead’s shoulder. 

Pamela smushed her lips together and hugged her potted plant. Today it was- not virgyl, but, maybe Phyllip? Or, Phraynk? 

Harleen wasn’t, like, at 100% during any of her stuff, though, but that was okay; that was just the price for having it all. Sure, maybe it would have theoretically been more satisfying to have more energy to devote to all of her endeavors , but the joy of life was what you get out of something, not necessarily what you put into it. 

“Hows your little buddy today~” Harleen said. She didn’t really need to be able to reliably distinguish between - oof, not Virgyl, Phyllip and Phraynk because she could be fairly certain that Pamela would just tell her, so Harleen didn’t need to devote any extra energy to it. And besides, Harleen used her brainpower for more important things, like remembering Pamela’s diet or which days she bussed over to the college for her biology, thing. (See? Like that- it was some sort of biology, fellowship? [Maybe internship? She was pretty sure Internships were usually at companies, but Harleen was pretty sure she heard of universities hiring interns before.] Or maybe she was just taking college classes in high school? She said something about a project, but maybe that was what happened in college? And anyway, it all probably had something to do with plants, so Harleen could probably fake a conversation about it until Pamela explained it again) 

“Phyllip has been under the weather lately,” Pamela said. “Metaphorically; it’s a good thing if plants are under weather, because of the rain, and- and stuff.” 

Harleen decided not to say anything, to see how big a weird conversational hole Pamela would dig herself into. Usually Pamela didn’t like to talk, but if you were silent for between seven and nine seconds, most people would get uncomfortable enough that they’d try to fill the silence. (This was also a litmus test to see if you were good enough friends with someone that you were comfortable enough just, coexisting with them.) 

“As in,” Pam-pam smushed her lips together, “Rain and sun are good for plants, and even harsher weather is fine, because plants are hardy and they’ve literally evolved to be suited for the outdoors…”

Besides, there were times when she didn’t have _anything_ going on, and she didn’t devote her full attention or energy to anything. Or, uh, if she had exactly one thing going on, she’d still find excuses not to give her all at it, so, she might as well have more things, and still not end up doing the same amount of stuff but also maybe getting to do even more of the things she wanted to do, and also having her pick of them (Like, video chats with Barb had to take a small backseat last week because Catwoman wanted them to do crimes on a bank money delivery last Tuesday.) 

“But not too hardy, which is why its necessary for them to have a protector, and for all the miserable humans in the world to be more aware of their effect on the world they’ve inherited from the true scions of earth…” 

Harleen simply smiled. She still had her arm around Pam-pam’s shoulder, so she was smiling directly into the shorter girl’s face. 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. “W-what are you doing?” 

“Oh, just, listening to you.” Harleen said. She refreshed her smile. “Intently.” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the other side and looked at the wall. “That’s weird. _You’re_ weird. Why would you do that?” 

“Oh? It sounded like you were going to get into one of your ‘Miserable Humans~!’ rants,” Harleen said. She waved her arms in the air at that last part, and Pam-pam took the opportunity to scootch, not all the way out from under Harleens arm. “And those are usually pretty interesting. Definitely well-delivered; did you take diction classes as a kid? Maybe you were in theatre?” That last possibility was, admittedly, wishful thinking on her part, since Harleen sincerely doubted that Pamela would be able to endure any sort of theatre performance, but if she _did_ , then she, her and Arthur could be a school play or something together, and that’d be _awesome_.

Pam-pam smushed her lips together. “Well, you’re _one_ of the miserable humans, so I don’t know why you would think that….” 

“Maybe it’s just fun to hear you talk about something you’re passionate about.” 

Pam-pam always had her hair in her face, presumably to hide behind, but it was pretty easy to see the tint in her cheeks anyway. She adjusted her grip on her potted plant and fidgeted with her fingers. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Harleen smirked. 

Pamela flinched, slightly, and she looked really hard at the wall. 

Harleen was gonna phrase this in the most problematic way, so don’t like get too mad at her at first, but Harleen had a thing for broken people. 

Now obviously, using ‘broken’ to describe someone was reductive and objectifying- as if people can ‘break’- like they were salad bowls, or kneecaps. 

And usually, that term just meant that under someone’s arbitrary definition of ‘in working order’, a ‘broken’ person didn’t live up to those standards, and who are these hypothetical authority figures to declare what is and isn’t acceptably ‘fixed’ mental and emotional patterns? This just meant people with power over you could justify trying to change you against your will. 

And honestly, ‘broken’ was a terrible way to look at it if you were, say, engaged in a pattern of negative emotions or behavior that was impacting your ability to function, to accomplish the things you want to do, or to build and maintain relationships with people you want to be closer to. 

But it was, like, Arthur was the broody guy in the corner who was actually very thoughtful and funny, but also had a lot of deep observations about the absurdity of life and a lot of feelings that he felt the need to repress, but not to her. 

And Pamela was some kind of misanthropic wall-flower (ha! puns.), but she was also a genius who was passionate about what she cared about, and also, just the right height for Harleen to rest her chin on her head. 

And besides, since Harleen was gonna be the best psychiatrist in the world one day, it was good that she enjoyed the idea of talking about other people’s issues, or putting up with behavior that would alienate other people, built up as a defense mechanism in negative circumstances but which still clinging to ends up negatively impacting their future interpersonal relationships-

“Y-yes,” Pamela said, eventually. 

Harleen was pretty sure that Pammy was just saying that to try to maintain her facade of misanthropy, and she was also probably touch-starved. But Harleen removed her arm from around Pamela’s shoulder and scootched just enough aways to not elbow the shorter girl as Harleen ate her school lunch. 

“So did you know,” Harleen said, with her mouth full of potatoe-like food-substitute, “That ‘Villain’ comes from the Latin ‘vilenous’, which means farmer?” 

Pammy-pam-pam blinked. 

Harleen waved her arm in an imaginary panorama in front of her. “It was a class based insult, for nobles to compare one another to the people who grew their food for them.” 

“Where are you going with this?” Pamela said. 

“Well, that means, technically, ‘supervillains’ are ‘superlative examples, of people who cultivate crops’,” Harleen enunciated around a mouthful of lunchmeat.

Pamela smushed her lips together. 

“But really there’s one supervillian who you can actually say is the most superlative example of them all." 

Pamela glanced at her potted plant and blushed, slightly. “Oh, well, thank yo-”

“Yep, Dr. Dina Saru, a paid employee of an international agriculture conglomerate,” Harleen stated with finality to the middle distance. “What a true all-american he- erm, villain.” 

And then Pamela tried to wrestle her in retaliation, which was just close enough to hugging that Harleen knew Pamela could internally justify initiating it.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“So why do you keep trying to physically attack me,” Harleen said to the petite girl she currently had in a headlock, “When your arms are like, literally, linguine?” With a free hand (because she did actually only need one arm to immobilize Pamela), she pried Pamela’s left arm off of her head and wobbled it around like some kind of Italian noodle. 

“Let-” Pamela squeaked out, “Let me go.” 

Harleen adjusted her headlock into a sort of, affectionate-yet-condescending head-hug, “But you brought this on yourself? Do you really want me to let you go?” 

Pam-pam’s face reddened and she puffed out her cheek, at least as far as Harleen could tell from where her face was. “Wh- of course! Why wouldn’t I,” 

“Just, wondering,” Harleen said. She released the headlock and Pamela scootched away and huffed and started brushing herself off. 

“I hate you,” Pamela mumbled, but she still continued to sit at the same table. 

“I hate you too,” Harleen said back, cheerily. 

And Pamela suddenly looked shocked and appalled. 

“Oh, I thought we were being ungenuine,” Harleen couldn’t subdue her smile. “Because I actually wuuuuuv you, Pammy-pam-pam-” 

“Gah,” Pamela grabbed her food and her potted plant and left the table, this time. 

But she was back 30 seconds later. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  


“So sorry I’m late, girls,” Batgirl said as she grappling-hooked onto a decorative stone wall at the edge of a suburban neighborhood. 

“Harleen was telling me a funny anecdote about her new friend and then she mentioned something that reminded me of an internet comic so I spent waaay too long trying to find a link to it-” Batgirl continued, “But I’m here now, to help contain the catastrophe.” 

“Oh, you misread my text,” Zatanna said. She pulled out her phone and showed the screen to Batgirl, “Today’s villain’s _name_ is ‘Cat-astrophe’.” 

“Except she made the mistake of Switching into costume in front of us,” Green Lantern said, “So we know she’s actually named Roberta Wells-” 

“And Green Lantern knows her from the animal shelter,” Bumblebee added. 

“Yeah, PSA on making sure you’re alone when you transform, girls,” Zatanna said, “I swear to god, someone’s going to end up Switching in an alleyway where some kid is looking out the window and they’ll blackmail us into becoming our sidekick-” 

Batgirl squinted at Zatanna's phone. “Don’t we already have, like, two cat-themed villains?” 

“I think it’s more, if you count the one-offs,” Bumblebee said.

“Oo, and you girls weren’t there for Dex-Starr,” Green lantern said. 

"Muwahahaha~" came a voice, over further into a suburban home. 

Wonder Woman led the team to pose heroically on the suburban terrace, just within line of sight of their adversary.

"Give it up, Superhero Girls! You’ll never defeat the machinations of _me_ , Cat-astrophe!” An old lady, surrounded by cats, in a quilted cat-themed face-mask, cackled. She stood in the middle of her house’s front porch, and cats were slowly wandering out of the open front door, into the yard. 

"You see- cats aren't merely autonomous processes- they form relationships with each other - on a geometric scale!” She waved her arms in the air, menacingly. 

“Which means that if you have enough cats, together they will form a neural network- an _intellect_ , unbound by the constraints of mere individuals- exponentially more powerful the more cats are added!” 

"Yeah, I read that article in the Atlantic too," Batgirl said, conversationally.

Cat-astrophe was unfazed. "Over the decades, I have accumulated a CRITICAL MASS of fluffy kitties, and now, they will form the GREATEST INTELLECT, the TRUE MASTER OF HUMANITY-” 

“Don’t cats already rule humanity?” Green Lantern joked. “I mean, we already feed, house, and clean up after them.” 

The yard was now largely covered with cats, randomly walking around, laying down, licking their paws, or stretching. Cat-astrophe started trying to pull cats onto herself in a pile, largely ineffectually.

Barbara pointed to the old woman in a pile of cats. “So, is this, something we have to deal with? Most of the villains we face aren’t technically doing anything illegal, but they _were_ actually doing bad things. So is this, like,” she pontificated, ineffectually, “something we can, just, ignore?” 

Wonder Woman turned to Batgirl and opened her mouth, but then, the pile of felines Cat-astrophe had scooped up around her, started moving with a noticeable intention, counterclockwise, with the old lady as the apex. 

And every cat in the yard perked up its head to look towards the gathering, charnel mass of cute, snuggly kitties. There was an echo of a shocking moan as Cat-astrophe became the origin of a vacuous darkness that wriggled and wriggled and writhed with the blasphemous undulations of the shadows of the glimpses of the untold, tenebrous depths. 

And eldritch runes shimmered into visible existence, coaxed from oblivion’s infinity, a color that was seen with sight but not sight, that radially effervesced throughout a sky swept asunder by the glittering blackness of the uncaring charnel wind. 

“Oh,” Batgirl said, “I guess not.” 

* * *

  
  
  


Zatanna summoned a runic shield around herself, Bumblebee, and Wonder Woman. Green Lantern created her own shield, and Batgirl and Supergirl took to dodging errant mad uttering of eldritch energy spat forth from the chittering, mewling cat-amalgam. 

“Hold fast girls, we must separate the cats from the central mass- ah-” Wonder Woman began, as she charged forward, shield raised, into the dark ocean of fluffy cats. “Ah- one, mobembt-”

Wonder Woman sneezed. The layer of cats swarming the ground began engulfing her resistant form, unsanctified idolatry incarnate. 

“Ah- whab ib thib unholby malaibze-” She sneezed, and then fell to her knees, as her eyes turned red and her nose started dripping uncontrollably and she started choking as her allergic reaction worsened. 

The sky dimmed and the space around the edges of the world warmed into unseen geometries. Cat-astrophe cackled maniacally, writhing her blasphemous cat-tendrils as she did. “See how your champion falls before my righteous conquest!” 

“Wonder Woman!” Batgirl called out. She reached her right hand out. “Quick, someone get her out of there!” 

“On it!” Supergirl said. She dove into the mount of cats to pick Wonder Woman- face red and mucus dripping from her nose and moisture clouding red eyes- 

“And separating cats?” Supergirl said, “Easy peasy, we’ll get this done right-” 

Supergirl looked at the cat she had picked up. It was an orange Persian, with a grumpy face. “Uh, right, now….” 

The cat looked directly into Supergirl’s eyes and mewed. 

Supergirl held fast for two heroic seconds, but then her will was broken. 

“Aaahhhhghhh,” she squeezed, “they’re so cute~”

She hugged the cat, which mewled nonchalantly, and then the heroine picked up more cats, hugging them to herself. 

“They’re so fluffy and cuddly and nice~” she managed to exclaim, before she fell to the ground, to be smothered by the pallid, noisome pallet of undulating, snuggly kitties.

“Supergirl!” Batgirl called out. She reached her right hand out.

“Green Lantern!” Batgirl said, “Can you conjure some cages to separate the cats?”

“Cages?” Green Lantern said, indignantly, “That’s rather inhumane.” 

“Okay, my bad, how about, like,” Batgirl pontificated, “boxes, that are lined with, like, foam or something?” 

“I know some of these cats. From the animal shelter. I remember when Roberta adopted them…” 

Green Lantern’s face fell and her voice sunk into a low whisper. She stepped forward, a trembling step. “We were granting them a better life.” 

“Perhaps this is mankind’s destiny- to be thrall to the ultimate cat intellect,” Green Lantern intoned in disquiet solace, treading through the lawn, allowing the swarm of fluffy kitties to start engulfing her form. 

“And they appear to be happy, here, right?” She intoned, weakly. She spread her arms out, in difference to the beating and the mewling of the cats-that-were-not-cats, “We worked hard to give them a home, and this is it. This is the dream we hoped to achieve.” 

And Green Lantern fell forward, arms out, into the writhing mass of snuggly kitties, to too be consumed by their indolent obscenities. 

“Green Lantern! No!” Batgirl called out. 

“Um,” Bumblebee said, as she tried to pick up an overweight Tuxedo cat, except her chosen feline was particularly adverse to being picked up by a stranger. “Do, we have a plan?” 

Zatanna waved her magician’s wand and her own set of runes appeared in mid air, intercepting an errant eldrich bolt from the writhing central cat-amalgam. 

“Don’t worry girls,” she said, with a flourish of her free hand running through her hair, “I got this.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Zatanna contained the eldritch cat spheroid in an array of nested runic polyhedroids. She painted several runes around the chosen battleground to hold at bay the tide of cats spilling forth from the home. 

The eldritch wizard duel illuminated the sky with brilliant lightning bursts and ancient, cyclopean runes. Batgirl steadily tried to move some cats apart, while Bumblebee tended to Wonder Woman. 

* * *

But eventually, Zatanna found herself outgunned. She had just a normal human intellect, after all, and the cat-amalgam was, if Barbara recalled the relevant article correctly, just going to get more powerful for each cat that got subsumed into its charnel, gathering bulk.

“Ah, I don't-” Zatanna took an eldritch bolt to the side and fell from the air, “I don’t know how much longer I can contain this. Batgirl, do you have a plan B?”

“Oh, I already did it, twenty minutes ago,” Batgirl said. She placed a large Siberian cat down on a part of the stone fence. 

And at that moment a minivan pulled up to the suburban home, and a woman in business attire stepped out. “Ah, what’s going on?”

And Cat-astrophe removed her mask. “Sweetie?”

“Wha- mom!?” yelled the woman in the suit. She put her fists on her hips. “Did you get more cats?” 

Batgirl brushed herself off. “I called her daughter, to come make her feel suburban forms of guilt.” 

The central cat-amalgam lowered to the ground and as the old lady sometimes known as Cat-astrophe stepped out of its noisome undulations. 

“You know the Home Owner’s Association has been complaining about the smell since the last time I had to come over.” 

“Noooooo,” Roberta Wells called out. 

“And what happened to your lawn? I thought I hired a gardener for you….”

  
  
  


And as the cat-intellect broke apart into separate, individual cats without its guiding super-ego, Supergirl and Green Lantern emerged from the squamous, gathering tide. Bumblebee rapid-prototyped a gas mask for Wonder Woman and Zatanna etched anti-magic runes around the home and yard, and Green Lantern called her volunteer group to find new owners for some of the cats. 

  
  
  


* * *

* * *

Barbara got to her team’s customary lunch table first, as usual. She sent a quick DM at Harleen with a funny comic and then started eating the frito pie. 

This week, Diana had joined the AV club, which met at lunch, so she'd be gone for a week, unless she actually decided she’d stick with it. (But since she already decided to join Debate, and was also a full-time superhero, Barbara figured that Diana wouldn't spend more than a week in AV club. (But also there were other primarily-lunchtime clubs so maybe they should start worrying about and preparing for Diana missing lunchtimes in the future...)). A glance at the food tables told Barbara that Jessica was in the slightly longer line for the non-meat options, and Kara was keeping her company. 

Zee and Karen joined them first. 

"Hey girls!" Barbara said. “How’s it going?”

"So, um," Karen began, "We- I mean, 'I'-" 

"You can say 'we'," Zee said, "It applies to all of us and we support you." 

Barbara looked up from her phone and tilted her head to the side. 

Karen took a breath. "Well, we were wondering, if you think that Diana, like," she pontificated, ineffectually, "checks us out?" 

Barbara blinked. 

"Like, Harleen was able to outright ask her, if she was attracted to women, which saves us the trouble of having to...” Karen continued. 

Barbara sighed and touched her forehead. "So when Diana says 'women', she actually means 'adults', because she grew up in an all-female society where the cultural connotation was primarily age-based- like, as opposed to ‘girls’ who she interprets as meaning ‘children’.” 

Barbara waved her hand in the air. "And she uses 'Man' in the Lord of the Rings way- like, with a capital M, and in the context of being opposed to, like, 'Elves' or 'Orcs'." 

"But," Karen scrunched her mouth to the side, "If, she did grow up in an all-woman society, that would also imply all the romantic relationships she grew up with, were between women. Which would imply that she would also, considered romantic relationships to default to, women and women pairings..." 

Barbara nodded, slowly, at the wall. Obviously she had realized that a while back, but she was hoping that none of her other friends would, so that they'd never have to have this awkward conversation. And Diana seemed to not be inclined to mention it (but also apparently, just, completely willing to talk about it at length if asked by someone who, like, thought it’d be funny to just repeatedly ask her).

"Well..." Barbara stalled, because Harleen had long ago told her that people considered it awkward if more than 7 seconds of silence went by, "So. What. Like, Um-”

"Do you,” Zee stepped in, “Think she might be into any of us?" 

Barbara waved her hands in the air. "I seem to recall that she said that we are _all_ beautiful," she said. Accurate recall of a previous situation was a detective skill, and she had been honing it for years. “Which is a way of implying that, no, she doesn’t think any of us are particularly beautiful.” 

"And she didn't actually look at any of us when she was discussing it." Except for Harleen, but she had deliberately encouraged Diana to do that for the lols, which didn't necessarily imply any impulse on Diana's part. “Which would also suggest that, no, she’s not into any of us.” 

"So you don't have to be worried about, whatever it is you're worried about," Barbara said. "Besides if-" She began, and immediately regretted it, "Well, if anything, we're always going to be a team. So, what does it even matter?" 

Barbara waved her hand in an imaginary panorama. "Unless one of us turns evil or gets brainwashed by, like, brain slugs, but I've been working on a special repellent for that eventuality." She patted her backpack. Good ol Bat-anti-brainslug spray. 

Zee and Karen shared a glance. 

"So I noticed," Zee said. She cleared her throat, "That you tend to inelegantly change the subject whenever the conversation topic gets awkward." 

"Whaa~," Barbara said. "Do I do that? - By the way, love your new hair clip! Where'd you get it? What does it represent? Do you worry that it's going to potentially clash with some of your outfits or do you already coordinate all your outfits with your hair color and therefore if you make sure your hair clips match your hair then they'll just match your outfits anyway?"

Zee scrunched her mouth to the side. "You realize that a joke about changing the subject, is still changing the subject?" 

"Well, I guess my best- my Gotham city best friend _i_ s a comedian," Barbara said. She nodded. "So maybe I've picked up a tendency for jokes! It all started when we were in elementary school together-" 

"Now you're just being obtuse," Zee said. 

Barbara sighed. "It's just, there's so much stuff in the world! And obviously as the total amount of stuff trends towards infinity, if there is a nonzero amount of bad stuff it will also turned towards infinity, but that just means its up to us to make sure we talk about more of the good things than the bad things- oh, hey, look who's here?"

Kara and Jessica joined them at the table, just then. 

"Like, how about those Star Wars High Republic announcements, huh?" Barbara said. She opened her mouth in excitement and looked between her four present friends. 

There was a chorus of blinking. 

"Kara, remind me to show you the most expansive space opera fiction- " Barbara squared her hands in front of her in a failed bid to clarify her idea, "book comic movie game multimedia, entertainment amalgam, thing, in the world. You might like it, since you're from a scientifically advanced society yourself."

"Hmmm." Kara said. 

"What are we talking about?" Jessica said. 

"Babs is trying to change the subject away from Diana-" 

"Hey, Zee, did you come up with any new magic tricks?" Barbara pumped her arms in exaggerated clown motions. 

Zee's brow furrowed. 

"Hey, Karen, you like anime, right? Have you seen _Beastars_ yet?" 

"I mostly just watch mecha anime,” Karen said, “and some popular shows.”

“Oh, we should show the group Miyazaki movies sometimes. Or, I’ll show you my faves and you can tell me which Gundam I should start with.” 

“Probably - _00_ or - _Wing_ \- _”_

“I can pencil that in for like, next weekend?” Zee said, “But you’re obviously trying to avoid the conversation here.” 

"Oh, hey Kara,” Barbara said, “You obviously want someone to ask you about that book you're performatively reading." 

Jessica groaned. 

"I’m not _performatively_ reading this book,” Kara said. She hefted a thick tome with an unembellished cover. “I know how to read.”

“Okay, cool!” Barbara said. She smiled, mischievously, “So how do you feel about the rejection of the concept of society as originating as a social contract between isolated individuals in favor of an inherently eusocial model of communities?”

Kara visibly sweated. “It’s- uh, I, both agree, and disagree.” She nodded to the wall. 

Barbara nodded to mirror Kara. She rubbed her chin. “A very thought-out position. Would you like to elaborate on your process?” 

Zee stepped in between Kara and Barbara. (Kara whispered a ‘thank you’.) 

"Ok, obviously this is uncomfortable for you," Zee said, "As Friend Group Alpha, I absolve you of having to talk about your feelings.”

"Ah-," Barbara said. She opened her mouth, and closed her mouth, acutely aware that everyone was looking at her. Like, she didn’t, need that, right? She wasn’t, avoiding talking about her feelings so blatantly that her friends had to, like, ‘absolve’ her of it, right?

Barbara took a breath. “Well, is being the friend leader everything you hoped for?” 

Zee smiled and, thankfully, went along with this attempt to change the subject. “Yes, I think so.” She performed a flourish with her right hand before setting it on her collarbone, “If you think of any suggestions or have any complaints, please be sure to let me know.” 

“Sure,” Barbara said. 

  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Poison Ivy approached the abandoned warehouse where the group text that her villain group sent out had said to meet. There were a lot of those in Gotham, since the insatiable greed of humanity meant they would create more places to store the components of their materialistic hedonism than they actually needed, and they would discard them just as easily.

She went back to her long boots today, since the heels were shorter and there wasn’t any chance she’d turn her ankle on them. Plus, she’d since given up on trying to appear taller. 

And she experimented with a little bit of eye shadow today- from an Evil cosmetics brand that _did_ do testing on animals. She liked how it looked, but she also hadn’t managed to make herself look like the girl in the youtube tutorial, but it looked pretty good for a first attempt (idly, she wondered if the Superhero Girls would notice). 

Ivy found the meeting area because it was the only place where the lights were on, and It occurred to her that she should come up with another catchphrase, like the other villains. Harlequin seemed to have an endless supply of puns, and Catwoman had, just, cat wordplay. Star Sapphire’s gimmick was love and Livewire would, just, insult you. 

But Ivy was here for business, so it was probably okay if she didn't, like, lean into the supervillainisms like the rest of her impromptu group-

And she could, vaguely tell that there were others further in, but now she was just standing there at the entrance, not saying anything, not even making her presence known-

"Hey," Ivy said, and at least she took solace in that it sounded aloof and disinterested. 

"Wazzup, itchweed?" said a familiar, abrasive voice. 

"Oh." Ivy said. Her expression flattened. 

Livewire, Giganta, and Star Sapphire were playing cards on a piece of wood reclaimed from a pier or something. 

Ivy coughed. "I guess, we're just waiting on Harlequin.” 

"Nah," Livewire waved the air. "The Harlequin can't make it tonight." 

"I'm pretty sure it's just 'Harlequin'," Ivy mumbled to herself. But she turned to Catwoman. "So, then, should we go, then?” 

"Oh, this is a social meeting today, nya," Catwoman purred. 

"I- what?" Ivy said. 

“It said so much in the text,” Star Sapphire said. “(do you have any jacks?)”

"So," Poison Ivy parsed, "You're not, gonna, do crimes tonight?” 

"(Go fish) Hey, we're currently pirating movies," Livewire said, "Do you prefer 'Nightcrawler' or 'Bonnie and Clyde'?” 

Ivy didn’t want to answer, because that would imply she was interested, but it was the second one. 

"They're crime themed movies," Star Sapphire deadpanned, "Because we're criminals." 

"But you're not playing crime-themed cards," Ivy pointed out. 

"We could turn it into strip go fish (do you have any twos?)," Livewire said. Ivy smushed her mouth and looked at the wall. "Add an element of humiliation to it. It’s villainous, if not specifically criminal." 

"Giganta would have a significant disadvantage if we did," Star Sapphire said. 

"(go fish) And my suit is a one-nya piece," Catwoman said."So, let's just purr-ay normal go fish. (do you have a-nya-y sevens?)” 

“Oh!” Catwoman said, right after she went fish, “And we have tea, if you would like some-” 

"Did you seriously just ask me that?" Ivy seethed. 

Catwoman smiled. "What if I told you this was meat tea?"

Ivy’s burgeoning rage paused, for a second. "Is that, a thing?" 

"What if she told you it was HUMAN FLESH~~" Livewire pontificated theatrically. 

Ivy ignored them all. She walked back to the doorway and pulled out her phone and brought up her contacts list to one of 8 people in it and started a text.

Hey, where are you?-

And almost immediately, 

-Sorry! The boyfriend had a Reese Witherspoon movie and I can't say no to that

Poison Ivy frowned at her phone.

She started typing out an angry rant.

Like, to point out that Harlequin had been flaking out on a whole lot of things lately-

And that Ivy had literally only joined this group because Harlequin had wanted to do it together- 

And Harlequin KNEW that Ivy didn’t do well in crowds and she had promised Ivy that she wouldn’t leave her alone with all these weirdos-

  
  


But Ivy erased all of them in turn.

OK-

  
  
  


"Wait," Catwoman stood up and intercepted Ivy at the door. “Why don't you stay just a little while? Maybe nya-ot through the entire movie, but maybe one round of cards?” 

Poison Ivy narrowed her eyes. "Well, I am a very busy villainess,” she lied. “Plus I don’t like you.” Which wasn’t a lie. 

Catwoman chuckled once, and Ivy wondered if her disdain had been too subtle. "So I knya-ow you only joined because of the Harlequin," Catwoman said. "But we really do like having you in the group.” 

“Can we have this conversation without the cat-puns?” Ivy glared. 

“Sure,” Catwoman said. She smiled. 

“And you just want me around because I’m the most powerful member of your group.” Ivy mumbled. "And also it's just 'Harlequin'."

"Can't it be both?" Catwoman said. "I mean, if we just wanted people with powers, we could just bust someone out of Arkham, or dip someone in toxic waste and hope it gives them superpowers instead of, just, glaucoma.” 

Catwoman tried to look Ivy in the eyes, but Ivy was really good at avoiding eye contact. “But that you, appear to be a teenage girl like the rest of us, helps with both our interpersonal cohesion and also our branding.” 

“Oh, speaking of branding,” Catwoman continued, “The Harlequin proposed we change our name to the 'Birds of Praise'.”

“What? But none of us are bird-themed,” Ivy said, and then more quietly, “And it’s just ‘Harlequin’.” And silently, to herself, she wondered why she hadn’t heard anything about this. 

“Maybe she meant 'Birds of the Praes’?” Star Sapphire said, still at the table, to confirm that Ivy’s conversation with Catwoman wasn’t private. 

“So is there a literal roman treasury officer we’re supposed to be reporting to, or is that a metaphor for something?” Lifewire said. 

“I don’t care about any name changes,” Ivy said. “So you don’t need me to be here for that.” 

“What if we called ourselves the ‘Vegan Pesticide Squad’?” Giganta said. 

“Or the ‘Fruity Rumpus Pediatric Incest Castration Bureau’?” Livewire said, “of Latter Day Saints.” 

Ivy glared. 

“Ha!” Livewire called out, “So you _do_ care about what we name ourselves.”

Ivy exhaled theatrically, to convey her disdain. “Fine, sure. I just figured you girls were minimally competent, but it appears that was an incorrect assumption.” 

“Oohhh, buurrrn,” Livewire exclaimed. 

“But I’m still not gonna stick around just so you can try to come up with a new name-” 

“Alright, hey, you’re business oriented, I can dig it,” Catwoman said. “How about you tell us if you have any particular heists you want to do?”

Ivy fidgeted. “Why?” 

“Well, so we can help you when you get around to them. What did you think we were here for?”

Ivy glared. “To play strip go-fish and to pirate movies you could just, get on netflix?” She never actually used netflix, but she figured it was probably true. 

Catwoman chuckled, “Well, today, but I meant existentially.” 

“I'm pretty sure Giganta’s here to get a chance to punch Supergirl and Sapphires only here because," ivy shrugged, "I don't know, something about, eating all the love in the world?”

“Sapphire’s actually very excited for when she gets to head a heist," Catwoman said, "Cuz, we’re all here to help each other out. The heroes always travel in a group, so, we would do well to do so too."

"Well," Ivy scrunched her mouth to the side. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to, have backup on some of the bigger plans..."

“Plus if you want to loot the factories I'm going to hit," Ivy shrugged. "I don't have any need for the valuables.” 

"See? This is great. We make a great team; I grab the loot, you blow up the miserable humans defiling the earth," Catwoman smirked as she quoted a part of Ivy's rants, "Giganta gets to smash, Harlequin gets to workshop her tight five, Livewire gets to call a superhero a cuck, and Star Sapphire can pursue a mysterious agenda driven by a pan-galactic alien organization." 

Ivy scrunched her mouth to the side.

"See, it would be very efficient for you to have connections with other villains, and to do that you might have to socialize, but it won’t be as bad as you think.” 

That, sounded familiar….

"Did you talk to Harlequin about me?" Poison Ivy said. 

"Well, she does appear to know you better," Catwoman said. "You did join together, after all. But that's fine. It's only natural that certain parts of a group are more in with each other than the rest." 

Ivy wasn't deterred. "Is that a 'yes'?"

"Technically _she_ talked to _me_ about you," Catwoman said, "When she realized she couldn't come today, she wanted me to make sure you got some attention.” 

There was a short flash of annoyance, upon hearing that. Poison Ivy checked her phone again to confirm that, no, Harlequin hadn’t given her _any_ heads up about not making it tonight.

“I don’t, need attention…” Ivy mumbled to the wall. 

“Of course not,” Catwoman said, “But maybe you’d like to pick the next card game?"

“Well,” Poison Ivy said, “I, guess, I can, stay for one round, if you want to do Old Maid…”

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, that was actually a silly Real Villain, rather than someone committing irl insidious-yet-legal schemes while vamping around like a comic book supervillain.


	5. Pam Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pam meets some of the Superhero Girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most named characters are property of Decicoulombs 'DC' Comics. 
> 
> I guarantee no expertise in or even basic correct knowledge of, DC's superhero universe, Supergirl's canonical power set, plants, Greek history, environmentalism, friendship, etymology, philosophy, psychology, capitalism, Godzilla, or talking about hypothetical boys as if you were attracted to them.

It was lunchtime, on a Friday (the last day Diana was supposed to be in A.V. Club), and Barbara’s remaining superhero best friends forever were around their customary six-seat circular table. She felt a little bad because the school had gotten just enough new students recently that seats inside the building were filling up and being a click with an extra seat was becoming super noticeable, but Diana would be back literally the next school day. And besides, if they tried to temporarily squeeze five people into one of the four-person booths, one of the other cliques might snipe their table. 

Barbara was in a long dm conversation with Harleen about Star Wars. Karen and Zee were also on their phone, and Jessica seemed to have wrapped up her conversation with Kara by the time both of them got to the table. 

“So,” Jessica ventured, eventually, “I guess without Diana, we don’t have anything weird we need to talk about.” 

“There’s upsides, though,” Karen said, “My sinuses have healed up nicely.” 

“Oh!” Barbara put her phone down, performatively, to show her friends she was paying them attention. “Dang, sorry girls. Alright, we can talk about our classes, or how our training’s going, or about movies we’ve seen recently- Harleen and I are actually watching this one-”

“Um, Babs, I appreciate it,” Zee said, “But we don’t need-"

“Oh!” Barbara continued, nonplussed, “Actually, we should use this time to talk about things we can’t talk about when Diana’s around,” Barbara continued, nonplussed, “Like, boys~” 

Jessica leaned to the side, towards Karen. “Did we just keep Diana around so we pass the Bechdel test?” 

Zee took the bait. “Well, there’s a few boys I’ve had my eye on. The boy we cast is very eloquent.” 

“Ooo~,” Barbara said. “Is he cute~?” 

“He, is.” Zee said. She smushed her lips together. 

“Have you talked to him yet~?” Barbara said. 

Zee’s cheeks tinted, slightly. “Well, in my capacity as, drama club president, but not like, personally…."

“Heehee,” Barbara grinned under her fingertips. 

Barbara tilted her head all the way to the side towards Kara. “And Kara, your cousin really cuts a good, figure?- in that suit.” Barbara pontificated with her hands while trying to remember the idiom. ‘Cut’ certainly meant _something_. 

“Aw c’mon, man,” Kara said. “That’s my cousin. I knew him when he was in diapers.” 

“It’s also basically the same as Supergirl’s suit,” Jessica deadpanned, “Just, with pants.” 

“Which also means its basically a pajama onesie,” Karen said- which prompted Barbara to turn to face her. 

“So how about you, Karen~” Barbara said in a sing-song voice. 

Karen scrunched her mouth to the side. “I mean, we’re still in high school. Like, what’s the point of dating when we’re all still mostly concerned with passing AP chemistry? Are we gonna get married after graduation or something?” 

“I mean, sure,” Barbara said. She glanced aside, “And marriage is a trick to convince young people into participating in the housing markets. But! That doesn’t mean you won’t, like, have crushes,” Barbara pondered, “Do you go more for nerds or for jocks?” 

Karen scrunched her mouth to the other side. “Nerds, probably-"

“And then do you go for more geeky, dweeby, or academical nerds?"

Karen scrunched her mouth to the other side. “Are those, actual established subgroups?”

Barbara flopped her head forward and grinned, “Okay so do you go more for twinky softboys or pretty-boy elf-looking doods, or unkept pirate rebels?” 

Karen furrowed her brow. “I feel like those are all the same thing and this is a trick question.” 

“Well, Jessica,” Barbara said. She turned to her friend. “I know you’ve been hanging around that hunky football player a lot~” 

“Gah,” Jessica said. “It’s- it’s not like that.” 

“Ooo~~” Barbara said again. 

“Seriously,” Jessica said, “Hal and I just accidentally- turned out to have some shared experiences-” 

“Sure, sure.” Barbara nodded and grinned. 

“I mean it,” Jessica stated. 

“Okay, then how about your, space cop academy?” Barbara continued to pontificate ineffectually, “Any cuties there?” 

Jessica coughed. “I mean, they’re all, aliens. So, not really?” 

“Wait,” Barbara said. She blinked, “Woah. I think I just realized that aliens are real?”

Jessica blinked. “Um, yes? You’re asking me that?” 

“Well, you do work with aliens with your, like, Green Lantern stuff,” Barbara pointed at her. 

“That is true,” Jessica said. “But also, Kara, here, is an alien.” She gestured to the resident alien at their table. 

Kara chewed on her lunch noodles and looked up from her book, “Hm?” She looked at Jessica. 

Barbara smacked her forehead. “Oh! Yeah, that’s right. I _totally_ forgot about that.” 

Kara swallowed her noodles. “Didn’t you specifically tell me and Diana to keep that on the down low, though?” 

“I guess its just, you look almost exactly like a human teenager,” Barbara said. “Is that how aliens look?” 

“Kryptonians have limited shapeshifting capabilities,” Kara said. 

“Oh, cool! Do Kryptonians have psychic powers, too? Is that how we’re able to understand you? Or is it, like, super-advanced wetware cpus linked to your brain that do etymological learning algorithms?” 

Kara looked at Barbara in bewilderment and annoyance, “Uh, you can understand me because I’m _speaking English,_ ya ding dong.“

Jessica stifled a chuckle. Zee coughered her laugh with a cough. Barbara felt her cheeks redden. “Oh.” 

“I crash landed here three years ago,” Kara said. “I learned English in that time.” 

“Yeah, did your cousin help teach you, what with him being able to bridge your two languages?” 

“Cla- Cous hadn’t learned Kryptonian,” Kara said. “He landed here as a baby. Even now, he's not fluent. I had to help him out with the Fortress of Solitude at first.” 

“So you crashed and he landed?” Zee said, conversationally. 

Kara’s expression flattened. “We both crashed. I guess Kryptonian escape pods don’t have landing computers.” 

Barbara figured that made as much sense as the rest of it. “So how did you figure out English without a bridge language?"

Kara scrunched her mouth to the side. “Kryptonian, etymological learning algorithms….” 

“Aha!” Barbara said. She pointed at Kara.

“But you totally can learn a new language with no bridge in three years,” Jessica said. "Thats, basically what babies do."

“That is true," Barbara said, "So Jessica, how do you communicate with _your_ alien overlords?"

“Oh,” she tapped her ear, “They gave me some translator microbes."

“Woah!” Barbara said, “So like, do they work on earth languages too?” 

“Um, I think a lot of them are programmed in the database, so, maybe?” Jessica said. 

“Can you understand Diana when she speaks Greek?” 

“Yeah,” Jessica said, “It’s a bit more archaic, but she’s very eloquent. Though i’m not sure some of the ancient greek idioms translate perfectly.” 

“Huh,” Barbara said. "So, does the syntax work differently in Greek?"

And it turned out that even when Diana wasn’t there she ended up dominating the conversation. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

Barbara actually thought it was kind of nice that Zee was taking over as friend group alpha. It meant Barbara had more free time (mostly to look up things to send to Harleen) and also she didn’t have to worry about accidentally scheduling things wrong. Like, she would totally forgive Zee if she messed it up and cognitively she knew that her friends would probably have forgiven her if she messed up the scheduling, but it was still nice to not have that over her head. 

And like, Barbara could just ask Zee to schedule things for her, so she didn’t even have to worry about not being able to hang with Harleen or her new friend. Well, she could just try to hang out with them without her Superhero BFFs. 

“Alright girls, thanks for coming!” Barbara said. She clasped her hands together. “I know you’re all super excited to hang with Harleen again-” 

Everyone smiled and nodded. 

“Buuut, she had a boyfriend emergency at the last minute, so, it’s gonna be just her new friend today-” 

Kara looked down at the giant embellished book she was performatively reading. “Aww.” 

Jessica looked at the notecards she had in her hands for round two of a superhero debate. “Dang.” 

“That is rather disappointing,” Diana said, “I was looking forward to asking her about my kneesocks.” 

“Wait, wha--”- Zee then glanced at Barbara “whaaat, is this about your socks, Diana?” 

Diana smiled. “Oh, I wanted to ask her what grade my socks were today.” 

“A,” Barbara deadpanned. 

Diana smirked, mischievously, but in the doofy way Diana thought being mischievous looked. “Oh, you would think so, but because of where the measurements start they are technically ‘S’.” 

Barbara opened her mouth, and then closed her mouth, because despite wearing kneesocks all the time, she didn’t actually know the exact mechanics of that meme. 

And she was saved from having to come up with a way to fill the silence because, at the edge of the food court, peeking out from some leaves that didn’t match the regular pattern of potted plants, was a familiar, messy red mop of hair. Barbara waved over, but Pamela just retreated back behind the corner. 

“Just one moment girls-” Barbara ran over to the corner to grab their guest. 

“Heeeeyy Pam~el~a~,” Barbara said. 

Pamela was wearing her trademark green wool jacket and had her trademark potted plant (dang, and Barb thought that her bat hoodie was iconic, but even she wasn’t devoted enough to sacrifice the ability to use 50% of her arms in most social situations.) And her hair looked like it did the last time they were in the mall.

“You look nice today! Did you like the hair treatment the salon did for you to do it again?” 

“Um, no,” Pamela said. She grabbed a chunk of her hair, idly, “But my mom made me shower when she found out I was invited to the mall…."

Barbara kept her expression mostly neutral. “Ah- maybe, don’t, mention to the others that your mom needs to make you take shower-"

Pamela’s face flushed. “I- what, no, I can shower by myself, _gods._ ” She tilted her head down. “I, just, don’t like wasting water. And hygiene is a lie the cosmetics industry uses to sell chemicals via the false notion that you need to smell like chemicals to fit in with society."

“-well, that sounds like something that would be fun to talk about the rest of us with!” Barbara said. 

Pamela glanced over at the table. Diana waved at them, enthusiastically. “With- um, all six, of you…?” 

Barbara blinked. Then she nodded. “I totally understand. Wait right here-”

  
  
  


Barbara ran back to her group. 

“Alright, so,” Barbara tented her fingers and made a smile, “Big favor to ask: Zee, can you, occupy Diana and Kara for a bit? So we don’t overwhelm our new friend with, all of, you know. This.” She pontificated. 

“Wait, what?” Kara said, “You think I’m overwhelming?” 

“You think _I’m_ overwhelming?” Diana asked. 

“Yes.” Barbara said. Jessica nodded. Karen grimaced, and then nodded. 

Diana closed her eyes and brought her hand to her chest. "But, as your friend pointed out, I tend to be very popular with girls-” 

Zee chuckled. “Hey, it’ll be fun. We can go shopping. Maybe try to dress Diana up in something other than sweatervests and schoolgirl skirts.“ 

“Just so long as it’s not pants,” Diana said. She looked into the middle distance and shook her fist half-clenched and muttered something about an inevitable reckoning on behalf of her culture. 

“But,” Karen said, “This means you want me and Jess to meet her?” 

“Well, Jessica _has_ to come,” Barbara said. 

Jessica blinked. “I do?"

“You’ll love her. Trust me."

“O-kay.” Jessica nodded, apprehensively. “Just like with Harleen, right?” 

“Yeah!” Barbara said. She pointed. “And Karen, I’m not sure if I've ever appreciated how agreeable you always are. You’ll be perfect."

“Thank you?” Karen said.

And Zee, Diana, and Kara went off into the mall while Barbara escorted Pamela to the table. She noted, with a small degree of pride, that Jessica took one look at Pamela (or more probably, her potted plant,) and smiled with the whole of her face. She stood up to hold out her hand, and Karen followed suit. 

“Alright girls, this is Pamela.” Barbara said. She jumped between Pam and her superhero friends to better wave the air between them. “Pamela, this is Jessica and Karen.” 

Jessica stepped forward and took Pamela’s free hand in both her own. “Hello Pamela! I love your plant~.” 

Karen waved hello, silently. Barbara started escorting them to the table. 

“Oh. Um,” Pamela said. “They’re name is Phranyk. They tend to get lonely so I took them along today...” 

And also carrying around a plant is a physical obstacle between you and other people, and you have something familiar with you when you’re meeting strangers, Barbara didn’t say aloud. 

“Ah, they are a ‘they,” Jessica said. They all found seats by now; Jessica was sitting to Pam’s left while Barbara took a seat to her left, with Karen across from her. 

“Yeah, because this plant has both pistils and stamen, and plants don’t have nervous systems or a cultural concept of, like um,” Pamela waved the air halfheartedly, “the bimodal spectrum of gender with endpoints approximated by how common mammalian chromosomal configurations manifest.” 

Karen leaned over to Barbara. “Probably a good call not bringing Diana here.” 

Pamela stared at her plant. "Technically I think using the sci-fi pronouns zhe and zhir would be more accurate since people who use ‘they’ have a different relationship to the gender spectrum than plants do, but people would think I was weird.” 

Barbara smirked. She pointedly glanced over Pamela’s hair, clothes, and the potted plant she was hugging to her chest like a security blanket. (Like, literally in the same context that Linus used his security blanket.) ”Yeah, you wouldn’t want people to think you were weird.” 

"You're trying to joke, but people get more confrontational about non-standard pronouns than about someone carrying a potted plant around,” Pamela stated. 

"Well, gender is a foundational part of many people's identities, so it makes sense it would be something more people would feel the need to get defensive about- ," Barbara said. Then she realized something, and she leaned over the table with her chin in her hands. “But does that mean you actually _do_ want to fit in with society~?

Pamela flinched. The eye not covered by her unkempt hair went wide (And probably her other one too, but Barb didn’t see evidence of that). “What? No! That’s dumb. _Society’s_ dumb. And so are the people in it. Miserable humans….” 

“So~,” Jessica said, and she obviously had been trying to jump into the conversation since the beginning, “you said plants don’t have the nervous systems or culture whatnot to have binary genders, but they do manage to feel some degree of loneliness?” 

Pamela nodded. “Yes. It’s because there is a metaphysical plant force that is the embodiment of nature itself that infuses all plants, but also manifests as distinct personalities on an individual level.” 

Jessica nodded. "Oh, like, Metaphorically?" 

"Literally.” 

Jessica nodded. "Cool, cool. Yeah." 

"But individual plants mostly experience singular sensations, with a small amount of environmental context-” 

“Heh, puns,” Barbara shot finger guns at Pamela. 

Pamela blinked. 

Barbara coughed. “But go on.” 

“- and only a small degree of memory. Sort of like a newborn baby.” 

“Is _that_ how babies work?” Barbara asked, rhetorically. 

Karen leaned over to Barbara. “ _Definitely_ a good call not bringing Diana here.” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. “Well I guess I, haven't managed to ask a newborn baby what they think, but I think that’s how it works. No-one I’ve met remembered anything from before they were, like, three.” 

Barbara nodded. 

Jessica nodded, intently. “So what kind of plant is- they? (Are they?)” 

“‘They’ takes the plural tense if it is the sentence subject regardless of whether its plural or singular,” Barbara said, offhandedly. 

“Phranyk is a flowering maple.” Pamela said. She caressed some of the flowers on her potted plant. 

“Oooo. I don’t know anything about plants,” Jessica said, “Can you teach me?” 

Pamela nodded. “Okay: Plants are a form of life native to earth.” She said, not looking away from her potted plant. “Specifically, multicellular eukaryotes of the kingdom _Plantae_ , predominantly notable for photosynthesis.” 

“Uh-huh,” Jessica said. 

“Historically the distinction between Plants has been in contrast to Animals, but recently scientists have classified some algae and fungi as their own category of life.” Pamela looked out into the middle distance. “But those who say that are fools, because they are also part of the Green.” 

“Woah,” Jessica said, enraptured. 

Barbara’s mouth flattened, because it would be rude to laugh. 

“And Plants are mostly defined by their ability to photosynthesize, which is made possible by chloroplasts-” 

“Uh-huh,” Jessica said. 

And when it became apparent that Pamela was likely to actually continue like this, indefinitely, Karen’s expression fell, slightly. She glanced at Barbara. Barbara elbowed Jessica. 

“- I actually had a peace lily once,” Jessica said, upon being elbowed, “but I overwatered it- them.” 

Pamela’s expression flattened. She said, under her breath, “ _Murderer.”_

Jessica looked a little taken aback by that. “I mean- okay, fine, yeah. It was a mistake of my younger self and I regret it.” She closed her eyes and brought her hands to her chest and inhaled and exhaled. 

Pamela shrugged. “I guess it's fine. I mean, I’ve committed murder too.” 

Barbara burst out laughing. Loudly. For a good 8 seconds. Karen chuckled, nervously. Pamela blinked at her.

Barbara wiped a tear away from her eye. “I can see how you’re friends with Harleen.” 

Pamela shrunk into her wool jacket. “Except apparently not enough for her to actually be here….” 

Luckily, Jessica picked up on that Pamela was sad, so she tried to distract her with conversation-

“Speaking of, how did you meet Harleen?” Jessica said. 

But unluckily, Jessica didn’t seem to understand that if someone was sad about someone not being there, maybe you _shouldn’t_ bring them up-

"She insulted my shoes." Pamela said. 

“Oo- there’s a shoe store in this mall-” Barbara waved her arms in that general direction- 

Karen blinked at Pam. "Really?"

"Yeah.” Pamela nodded. “She recognized me from somewhere but I had never seen her before in my life, then she made fun of my height and my shoes.” 

“That’s- well, you’re not that short.” Jessica said. 

Karen held out a fist. “As a fellow shortie, allow me to offer some solidarity.” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side and eyed Karen’s outstretched fist for three whole seconds before returning the fistbump. 

“Anyway,” Barbara began, but she didn’t have anything to follow it up with. 

Jessica filled the space, “So why did you stick around with Harleen, if she made such a bad impression?” 

“Well, she was persistent,” Pamela mumbled, “And she was a good listener, I guess. And handy in a fight.” 

Karen and Jessica glanced at each other. Karen said, “We kind of had a dif-” then she looked to Barbara, “Well, Harleen, definitely left an impression on _us._ ” 

“And the next time she can come with us, you’ll see it even more!” Barbara said, and she immediately saw it was a bad move because Pamela shrunk back into her hoodie. Talk about forgetting her own advice.

"Sooo,” Barbara said, to Pam-pam, “not to steal Karen’s line, but do you watch anime?” Karen chuckled. 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. 

"Oh, its okay if you haven’t-” Jessica began.

"I saw the Godzilla anime,” Pamela said. “It was terrible. “ 

Karen chuckled. “Oh? 

Barbara nodded, sagely. “Was it because the generic angry male protagonist had every female character fall in love with him, before he got most of the characters killed in an ultimately futile endeavor?” 

“I mean, that too,” Pamela said, “But it had the same problem that most environmental disaster movies have-“ 

Pamela placed her potted plant on the table and then waved the air, vaguely. "See, all you miserable humans only watch Godzilla movies because you're _lazy,_ ” Pamela seethed. She looked out into the middle distance and shook her fist, half clenched.

Jessica opened her mouth. "Uh-” 

“Because you want to feel like there will be some external karmic balancing of the scale if you go too far, to absolve you of the guilt you have when you loot the earth for your untempered hedonistic malaise-" 

Pam’s eyes (well, definitely the one eye visible because of the way she parted her hair, but probably both of them) widened and unfocused and she pontificated more exuberantly, “Because you know that you defile the environment and ravage the earth’s resources for your consumerist ouroboros and you want to tell yourself that someday some lumpy dinosaur mutant will emerge from the carcass pile of avarice you’ve wrought and hold you accountable.” 

“Uhhhh-” Karen said. 

Barbara waved a hand in front of Karen, "She's having a Brad Bird moment, just give her a minute-" 

"That you have forsaken any sort of responsibility and want an otherworldly lazer dinosaur to externalize any impetus you have to temper your gluttony-” 

Pamela was standing up, now. She waved her arms around in an imaginary panorama all around her and her voice was less shaky, “See, the most polluted place in the world is Bautou-"

“Yes!” Jessica stood up and pointed, “The tailings pond where the runoff for all the heavy metals used to make electronics ends up-” 

Pamela nodded and made eye contact with Jessica for three seconds, "And you’ll notice that if some sort of radioactive lazer dinosaur emerged from there and started lazerblasting everything around, it wouldn’t kill any of the people commissioning the mines or building your smartphones or allowing the refuse to accumulate unregulated, nor would it laserblast the people consuming the metals being stolen from the earth, nor the systems of human society that made it all possible."

Karen and Jessica’s respective (opposite) expressions intensified.

“And the same would happen if a Godzilla emerged from Agbogboshie, or Yucca Mountain, or the Bikini Atoll- the devastation would not be wrought on those who actually created the pollution there.” 

“See, seventy percent of all the pollution in the world is caused by one hundred corporations,” Pamela ranted, “It's not because of individuals that the earth’s resources are being ravaged-” 

Jessica made a grimace that was also a smile, “Well, all the consumerism that corporations serve is, ultimately due to individuals-” 

Pam-pam didn’t break stride. “But the culture of consumerism is created, perpetuated, and intensified by the powerful, which in a capitalist society is usually giant corporate entities. So all the ambient talk about how ‘humanity is consuming too much’ and ‘not respecting the earth’ in the Godzilla anime, and also _Shin Godzilla_ and especially _King of the Monsters_ , is just corporate propaganda to try to shift the burden of change away from those who are actually sinful.” 

Karen looked concerned, but Barbara had seen this kind of thing before. Jessica, however, was enthralled. 

“Pollution and environmental devastation isn’t caused by the average human,” Pamela ranted, “Like, if you randomly selected fifty or even ninety nine percent of the humans in the world to kill to stop pollution, odds are you’d mostly get subsistence farmers or laborers in the developing world or lower-middle class people in developed nations whose contribution to pollution, deforestation, and deep mining is minimal.” 

Pamela brought her hands in front of her and she flailed and gnashed her teeth as she continued. “But people just want to believe that an invincible monster will emerge to punish them if they go too far, to vaporize Japan’s parliament or American congress or the spaceship captains who ordered the devastation of the world-” 

Jessica nodded. “Yeah, most people in the environmentalist group I'm going to see it as, like, a lifestyle to gain social status rather than a goal-oriented movement-” 

Pamela nodded, “Yes, because miserable humans believe they have control over their lives, that they can half-heartedly recycle twice a week and turn off their air conditioning to save the world, and even then they desire the comforting lie that a Godzilla will emerge from the ashes of their gluttony to stop them if they go too far. And thus, as long as no Godzilla emerges, then their avarice is fine, they haven’t crossed the line."

“But there is no such karmic check and balance. Humans will consume the world, and the wealthy and powerful will leverage their ill-gotten gains to mutilate and destroy the planet, and no natural force exists that can stop them-” 

Barbara snuck into Pamela’s personal space to put an arm around her shoulder. “Well you know what Gandhi said.” 

Pamela blinked. She paused her megalomaniacal rant. 

Barbara waved an imaginary panorama in front of her. “ _Be_ the radioactive laser dinosaur you want to see in the world.’ - Mahatma Gandhi, 1946” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. She sat down. It seemed that all the Brad Bird was out of her system. 

Barbara also sat back down. “So are you looking forward to the next Godzilla movie?”

“It- is likely to just be the same as the others,” Pamela said. 

“But you saw the previous one every weekend when it was out,” Barbara said, to her phone. 

Pamela immediately flushed “Wha-” 

Barbara smiled. “So was this a ‘other people are enjoying my fandom wrong’ thing, or a ‘if you know why your fave is problematic you can enjoy it free from subconsciously internalizing its problems’ thing, or do you actually hate all the plot elements and just watch it because you love looking at his lumpy dinosaur head so much?” Or, you know, everyone had a way in which they were a little bit of a hypocrite. 

“H-how do you know what movies I watch?” Pammy said, weakly.

Barbara held up her phone, “Oh, I saw your LexScreen movie history when I looked up your name in the database.” 

Pamela scrambled to pull her phone out of her pocket. (Barbara noticed it was a first generation Android with the screen cracked to shit.) “W-what? I don’t remember making that public-” 

“Well it’s set to public by default,” Barbara leaned her head to the side, “you know, so that your friends can look up which movies you’ve seen, and also have bought tickets to.” She scrolled through her own account on the app. “Like, I’m already signed up for every Disney Movie that’s been announced and I’ve been looking forward to the new _Fast and Furious_ -” 

Pamela apparently managed to finally open up the app on her own phone. She paused her frantic scrabble and she squinted through the cracks in her screen. “I- what if I, don’t want my profile to be public…” she mumbled.

Barbara leaned back over to Pamela’s shoulder, to help her out with technology. And you know, maaaybe peek at some of Pam’s other identifying information, to help build up her file. 

“Just click, there,” Barbara pointed. “And then ‘there’ and then, ‘friends only’ or,” Barbara shrugged as Pamela selected the ‘nobody’ option, “you know, that one.”

Pamela smushed her mouth into a thin line. “....Thanks.” 

“Aw, any time, Pam-pa- erm, Pamela.” Barbara smiled. “Oh, and one last thing- push ‘that’.” She pointed at a popup on the app.

“I- what’s, that do?” 

“It’ll accept my friend request,” Barbara said. She smiled.

Pamela smushed her mouth into a thin line. She stared at her phone for five seconds. Then she tentatively clicked ‘accept’. Barbara patted her shoulder.

Karen cleared her throat. “Well, if you want, there's some Animes I’ve seen about the importance of humanity as nature’s companion-” 

“Ugh,” Pamela said, “I already saw _Nausica_ and it had the exact same problem as the recent Godzillas -” 

“Well I was actually thinking of _Princess Mononoke_ ,” Karen said, “And I know a few series that have messages I think you might like."

“I have not seen Princess Monokey either,” Jessica said, “Ooo, we could have a movie night!” 

“Ooo, there’s an idea!” Barbara said, “And Harleen would definitely be down.” 

Pamela made a smile with the right half of her face. She brushed some hair out of her eye. “I- maybe…” 

Pamela didn’t say anything else.

Jessica refreshed her smile. “So! Do you want to get lunch now-” 

“Noooooo~” Barbara yelled out. Pamela flinched. 

Jessica tilted her head to the side. “I- um. Why not?” 

“Pam, has literally the opposite diet as you,” Barbara confessed. 

“It’s ‘Pamela’,” Pam said, “And, does that make you a vegan, Jessica?” 

Jessica seemed unduly happy that Pamela addressed her specifically and by name. “I- well, yes. But I don’t, begrudge other diets- I’ll even buy your food if you want?” 

“I- I have my own money…” Pamela said. 

Jessica smirked, "Even though you're so anti-consumer?"

Pam scrunched her mouth to the side. “Well I have to make compromises before I learn how photosynthesize and graduate high school…"

"Not in that order I hope," Barb said. She stood up and started pulling Pam to the food court.

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

This was the second different mall Barbara had been to with Pamela, and thus a different food court. On the upside for Pam, there were less vegan outlets. On the downside for Jess, there were less vegan outlets.

There was a huge line to Burgatory, and Birdy-satva’s didn’t have any vegan options so Karen and Jessica went to the Garden Salad of Eden chain while Barbara waited in line with Pam for Birdy-Satvas.

“He~ey~,” Barbara said. She leaned on Pam’s shoulder. 

Pamela shuffled a little, but she didn’t push Barbara off. “Hey.” 

“So is your second time being out with friends at the mall going well?" Barb said, “I think Jessica really wants to be friends with you~.” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. “Oh. Yeah. Um.” 

“Harles really got along with Jess,” Barbara said. She performatively inspected her nails to suggest that she was cool and aloof, “Not as much as Diana but she did have a very spirited conversation with Jess about, uh,” Barbara blinked and recalled the relevant events. “Cannibalism.” 

"Oh, really?" Pam perked up. 

“Of course, I’ll be sure to get Diana and Kara to tone it down next time you hang. They’re kind of a lot.” 

“Okay.” 

Barbara nodded and tried to think of something else to say as they waited in line together. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

“So, you only eat meat?” Jessica said, when they were all back at the lunch table. 

“Sometimes I eat Lexcorp brand Foodless Meal-substitutes,” Pam mumbled to her chicken. "And I eat a multivitamin everyday. But otherwise, yes." 

“Because you love plants so much?” Jessica said. 

Pam nodded. She nibbled on her chicken strips.

“But it takes ten times as much plant mass to create any given amount of meat,” Jessica said, “So wouldn’t eating meat just mean more plants get murdered?” 

Pamela scrunched her mouth to the side. “Well I’m not raising the livestock myself. I’d never deliberately raise animals on poor plants, just to eat them.” 

“So its monastic Buddhist rules, huh?” Barbara said. 

“But then,” Jessica said. She grinned, “Would that imply you were against livestock farming?” 

“Yes," Pamela said. "Worldwide, cows eat 26 billion pounds of plant matter a day. They should all be killed and eaten immediately.” 

Jessica opened her mouth. She blinked. “Uh- I, guess, that is, what would happen if livestock farms, suddenly stopped getting, supported by society as a whole.” She shrugged. “And they’re the third largest contributor to global emissions after fossil fuel power plants and vehicles, soo…” 

Pamela similarly shrugged. “I mean, sure, but I don’t really care about that.” 

Jess scrunched her mouth to the side. “You don’t think climate change is a problem?”

“I mean, I believe in it,” Pamela said, “But some form of plant life will survive even a drastic global temperature spike, and on the plus side it might trigger an extinction event for humans.”

Jessica laughed. “You’re so funny, Pamela.”

Pam blinked. “I’m serious-”

Jessica gestured with her fork. “But you just said that Godzilla killing scores of average humans wouldn’t actually impact emissions.” 

Pam scrunched her mouth to the side.“There’s a difference between ‘being against something’ and ‘not being in favor of it’. Murdering all seven and a half billion people in the world would take a lot of effort, and only a small percentage of that would appreciably impact pollution levels, but if it happened it would still completely eliminate pollution. And emissions too, I guess” Pamela shrugged, “Though some humans create technology that restores the environment, so a sudden total elimination of humans might not be the most optimal thing for the environment, at least until those humans fulfill their purpose.” 

“Ooh, so ‘emissions’ and ‘pollution’ are different to you?” Jessica said. 

Pamela blinked. “I mean, yes? Isn’t, that commonly understood?” 

Jessica tilted her head to the side as she ate her salad. 

Pamela gestured with her arms. “That in the 80’s, to neuter the environmentalist movement, corporations managed to successfully reframe the debate of pollution around climate change, specifically because it takes several decades to gather noticeable climate data and also ‘climate change’ was likely to be a far less drastic change than the effects of pollution on tree health, water toxicology, or soil ph levels-” 

“Or turning the frogs gay,” Barbara interjected. 

Pamela ignored her. “You know, just how corporations managed to frame the Smoking debate exclusively around ‘cancer’, which in most people takes decades to manifest thus allowing cigarette companies to continue to sell cigarettes unfettered for a generation after the first concerns were raised about them.” 

“YES!” Jessica said, “My debate team actually just did a unit on cigarette company rhetoric-” 

And as Jess and Pamela discovered they agreed that smoking was Bad, Barbara found herself less needed to moderate the conversation. She finally checked her phone-

To see she had 31 messages from Harleen. All of it instructions on how to make sure Pam had a good time. 

It was stuff like, ‘don’t mention veganism’ and to give her the benefit of the doubt when she , and give her space when she was trying to be shy and all that. 

Barbara sent a text back, to let Harles know that it turned out she already had it handled. 

  
  


-Wait really?

Yeah, she’s really hitting it off with Jessica.-

-Ah, the hippie. That, is very surprising. 

-ikr?

‐Again, tell her I’m so sorry I couldn't be here. :( 

Barbara scrunched her mouth to the side. Pamela seemed to have actually forgotten about being sad that Harles wasn't here. 

-Sure thing!

You know, like, Babs could just, say that right at the end, to not bring down the mood. 

  
  
  
  
  


And Barb did, right as Pamela was scheduled to leave. Pam scrunched her mouth and shrugged and stuff, and awkwardly returned the waves that Barb, Karen and especially Jessica gave her. 

Barbara turned to Jess and Karen. “Soo- 

“This was soo much-” Jessica began, excitedly, and then she coughed. “Or, you know, just as good as Harleen. You should introduce us to more of your friends! (not that, im implying i don’t have my own friends).” 

Barbara rubbed the back of her head. “Well, I guess I can see what I can do? But Pam was- actually, I don’t know what caused- oh!” Barbara said, “She, actually reached out to me. (How did she get my number? hmm)... “ Barbara rubbed her chin. “But like, I haven’t even met Harles’s boyfling yet, and we didn’t really have that many friends back in Gotham.” Barbara chuckled as she reminisced. “It’s kiindaa a dog-eat-dog school there. Harles and I had each other’s backs though-

“Anyway,” Jessica said, “We should invite Pam to more of our things!” 

Karen opened her mouth, and closed her mouth. 

Barbara shot finger guns to Jess. “It was cool of you to be so chill about her dietary needs, and like,” she shrugged, deliberately, “not fight with her like you did with Harles.” 

Jessica scrunched her mouth to the side. “But, I, didn’t fight with Harleen over diets.” 

Barbara tried to mentally replay that day. "Didn't you?

“I don’t think so?” Jessica said, “I’m sorry if i did, but I thought we just had a discussion about it.” 

“Huh,” Barbara said. 

Karen spoke, after a moment. “So is that what shy people are like?” she said, “is that what _I’m_ like?” 

“You’re not quite as bad as she was,” Jessica said, 

“Well.” Karen inhaled deeply, “Maybe I should, work on that…” 

“Only if you want to,” Barbara said, “I think we have enough social people in our group- speaking of:” She pointed at the other half of their superhero best friend group. 

Diana and Kara were wearing different clothing styles than what they normally wore. Zee looked contemplative. 

“Hello, friends!” Diana said. She waved, and then posed, with her fists on her hips and her eyes closed. “Zee has introduced me to a new style of fashion and I must say, I have taken to it."

Zee's expression flattened. "I decided to let them chose and they picked the ren-faire store." 

"I really like the pauldrons," Kara said. She flexed her arms. 

"This tunic is very light and offers excellent mobility," Diana said.

"That's basically just your Wonder Woman costume," Barbara said.

Diana closed her eyes and smiled in nationalistic pride. “I see my people have influenced the broader world yet again.”

Barbara mentally started preparing a brief overview of midieval attire and renniasance faires.

  
  
  
  


**OMAKE:**

  
  


That night, Karen went to the front door at her dads’ behest. It was Jessica. 

"Karen, I need to learn everything about Godzilla,” Jessica said. 

"Well, I don't, actually know anything about Godzilla," Karen scrunched her mouth to the side. "Have you asked Barb?" 

"Well, she’s,” Jessica scrunched her mouth to the side, “Busy? And she’s probably, not into it since its not yaoi."

Karen scrunched he mouth to the other side. “Well, come inside, and I can see what I can look up for you…” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  


“Sorry I’m late, girls,” Batgirl said as she grappling-hooked onto the roof of a commercial storefront. “Harles was quizzing me about how our mall day went today and I got so into singing all your praises that I lost track of time, but I’m here to fight the Lone Shark-” 

“Oh you misread my text,” Zatanna said. She held out her phone. “We’re fighting a Loan Shark."

Batgirl squinted at the phone. “Wait, that’s a common phrase. How did I misread that?” 

“I honestly don’t know how you keep managing to misread all my texts,” Zatanna deadpanned. "Like, all the time."

“Give it up, superhero girls!” yelled someone in a business suit and a shark mask, “You’ll never defeat the machinations of me, the Loan Shark!” 

Wonder Woman posed theatrically with the rest of her team. 

“For you see,” continued the Loan Shark, “Over the years, the tireless efforts of materialist consumerism have mandated that people have a specific selection of objects as a cost of living.

"Additionally, over the years, many aspects of society have created systems that incur random fines for random lapses in judgement or simply inevitable side-effects of modern society, such as traffic violations, hidden medical fees, licencing fees, and software updates, to squeeze surplus money from first-order wage-earners."

“But since a strata of the population doesn't have the means to afford sudden living costs, the market has provided the service of offering privately-created money under unilateral repayment obligations."

"And because that service has an intrinsic monopoly because the clients have few alternative options!"

The Loan Shark cackled maniacally. "We can charge exorbitant interest rates for our loans - often enough to eliminate our clients ability to save money entirely, ensuring that they have to return for additional short-term unsecured cash advances, enforcing the cycle of debt with the illusion of legal obligation!"

"You fiend!" Wonder Woman yelled, "You'll never get away with this!"

"Oh, I already have! Mwahahahaha!"

"Ookay, soooo," Batgirl said. She clicked her mouth and pointed finger guns at her team as she walked back to the edge of the building. "You guys got this?"

"But the Shark who is Alone must be stopped, Batgirl!" Wonder Woman said. 

"Hey, not arguing with you there. Its just," Barbara lifted a foot towards the edge of the building, "this seems like a case where we don't need the whole team?”

“Aw, c’mon Batgirl,” Supergirl said, “This one actually bothered to dress up. We can’t always be fighting eldritch cat monsters or rogue agriculturalists.” 

Batgirl sighed. “Okay, fiiine.” She grappling-hooked down to the Loan Shark and pulled out her Bat Shark Repellent and started spraying it in the villain's face.

"Ahhh!" Yelled the Loan Shark, "That stings!"

Batgirl sighed. “I wonder what the Supervillian Girls are up to…” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

Harley Quinn cartwheeled into the bank her villain group had robbed. “Girls, I am so sorry,” she said. “I was off kicking caaaaa- dogs,” She looked at Catwoman, and then away from Catwoman, “and evading taxes and other villainous things that definitely wasn’t a two hour argument about _Avatar_ with my best friend and I lost track of time - “ 

“Save it,” Catwoman said. “At least you’re _purr_ esent, now.” 

Harley Quinn shot some finger guns to Catwoman and then started helping subdue bank guards.

  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

"So we decided agai _nya_ st 'Birds of Praise',” Catwoman said as Harley helped her haul a giant burlap bag with a green dollar sign on it to the getaway vehicle.

“What? “ Harley said. 

“Your team name suggestion,” Catwoman said, “That you suggested last time. None of us were feline it.” 

“Wha- no, Ah said ‘Birds of _Prey_ ’.” Harley shot her most incredulous expression to her teammate. “Like, the classification fer hawks, and eagles.” She tilted her head to the side. “Why would we be 'birds of praise'?

“I dont k _nya_ ow, I figured it was a meme or something.” Catwoman said. “Because none of us are bird themed, so why would we ever call ourselves that?”

Harley Quinn touched her head with her fingertips. “It’s a metaphor, God. Surely they teach that in villain school? It’d make us sound cool.” 

“ _Nya_ o, it’s stupid and obtuse,” Catwoman said. 

“Alright,” Harley and Catwoman threw the bag of money into the truck. “How about ‘Suicide Squad'-”

“What? Absolutely not!” Catwoman said. She stopped pulling on the next large burlap sack with a dollar sign printed on the side. She didn’t even bother to use a cat-pun, was how upset she was. Dang. “What, are we, gonna commit suicide? Are we _planning_ on our robberies being suicide missions?” 

Harley grinned. “Nah, it shows we’re not afraid to die, which gives us strength.” 

“We’re not, we’re not like, murderers,“ Catwoman said, “Well, I don’t think.” She pointedly looked at Poison Ivy, who was waving her arms to animate some vines into restraints for their hostages. “We’re supervillians. Supervillianess.” 

“One of us literally,” Harley said. She winked at Poison Ivy. “Right Ives?” 

Ivy didn’t respond. She didn’t even make eye contact, which suggest she hadn’t even heard her. 

Harley didn't let it faze her. “Alright, fine, I’ll workshop it.” 

And then their collective supervillain senses went off, and they noticed, standing on the top of a building across the street, were five heroic caped figures. 

“Hahaha!” Catwoman yelled. And 5/6ths of the Suicide Squad (approval pending) posed around her while Star Sapphire checked her phone. "Give it up Superhero Girls! You- wait, who the heck are you guys?” 

Harley blinked and took a look at the heroes, a group of six framed in shadow, but even in shadow she could tell they definitely weren’t their usual group. 

“We~,” said one of them, “Are the Invincibros!” Somewhere, some airhorns went off. 

“ _I_ ,” said a, white male looking version of Green Lantern. “Am the Gree- wha- Carol?!?” He suddenly yelled. 

“Woah woah-” Catwoman began. “What’s with these names-” 

Star Sapphire blinked, and then a manic grin grew all over her face. “HALSY WALSY!?!~~” 

“Hey! No names!” Catwoman blurted out. “We have secret Identities for a reason!’ 

Green Lantern Guy’s powers immediately pooped out with an appropriate sound effect and he fell to the ground. “What- what are you doing here-” 

Caro- actually Harleen was gonna pretend she didn’t hear that (Besides, there’s probably a zillion Caroles in the Metropolis/Gotham/Local-Dimensional-Timespace-region-that-Violet-Lanterns-roam area. LIke, sure Sapphy appeared human, but so did Supergirl, so maybe she was actually an alien in disguise. ~~Named Carole~~. ) 

Anyway, Green Lantern Guy ran away screaming as not-Carole cackled in rapturous abandon and was engulfed in pink plasmoid hearts, radially effervescing around her form. She flew after the depowered Green Lantern Guy (Harley idly wondered why she never used that trick on the regular Green Lantern) and started clutching his head to her chest as he whimpered and cried. 

“Anyway, “ said a man. “Hi! I’m Steve-” he held out a hand towards Catwoman-

Catwoman covered the cat ear protrusions (speaking of people who appeared human, maybe Catwoman was, secretly, literally some kind of anime catgirl) on the head of her costume. “LALALALALA- WHY ARE YOU GUYS SO BAD AT THIS-” 

And then a giant shirtless guy with wings and a winged helmet tried to hit Giganta with a mace. Like, literally a medieval (And Harles tried to come up with a ‘get medieval on their ass’ joke) weapon. 

Giganta recovered and walked up to him and cricked her neck and then punched him. 

The winged guy cricked his neck and then he punched Giganta. 

Giganta then punched the winged guy-

“Uh,” Harley Quinn said. She shared a bewildered glance with Livewire and failed to make eye contact with Poison Ivy, but then a literal arrow struck the ground next to her foot. 

“Haha! Forsooth and forthwith I will be thine adversarie this eve,” A blonde guy in a robin-hood hat with a goatee pontificated theatrically, “Tremble before my idolotrous dignity-” 

Harley immediately smashed his face with her hammer. “‘Forsooth’ means and is used to express an opinion, actually. Which I guess, since you weren’t much of an adversary, might, actually be accurate.”

“Nerd!” Yelled Giganta, from the other side of the room, still in the middle of her mutual consecutive punching competition with the winged guy. 

“Well technically it’s my best friend who's an etymology nerd,” Harley clapped her hands together. “But I am also, independently, a nerd in multiple ways, Ah will cop ta.” 

“Alas! I am slain!” Goatee cried out as he collapsed to the ground. Harley kicked him in the stomach.

A small boy in a unitard was whirling a bottle’s worth of water in elaborate patterns. “And then it is I, Aqualad!” 

Harley Quinn put her left fist on her hip and gave Aqualad an incredulous look. “C’mon kid, what are you, eight?” 

“I- I’m fourteen! Next month.” Aqualad said. He pulled some water out of his waterbottle, magically, “Safely in high school range-:

“Oo, so you control water?” Harley Quinn said, “I mean, that might make sense with your name, but like, Catwoman isn’t even a cat (probably),” 

“I- yes-” 

“So can you bloodbend?” 

“What?" 

“You know,” or maybe he didn’t if he actually wasn’t a nerd despite his whole, like, general vibe. “Since human beings are 90% water, if you can manipulate water you should be able to SIPHON OUT ALL OUR BLOOODDDD.” Harley clutched her face as she stopped closer to the boy. 

“I- but that’s horrible!” he squeaked. “I wouldn’t do that!” 

“But can you, is the question.” Harley stepped closer. She was almost in hammering range. 

“Um.” He looked at the water bottles worth of water he was manipulating. “I, never, tried-” 

But then he got zapped, and then fell over. 

“Haha, cuck!” Livewire yelled. She posed, dramatically. 

Harley shot her a glare. 

Livewire blew on her pointer fighter, as if it were a smoking gun. “What? If he’s a high schooler he was gonna get called a cuck eventually. I mean, look at him,” She grinned and tilted her head to the side, “Or was this about the kill-steal?” 

Harley scrunched her mouth to the side. It was mostly about the kill-steal. 

  
  
  
  


“Listen, you really _nya_ eed some kind of alias,” Catwoman said, as she approached Steve. 

“How about, _The_ Steve?” Harley called out. “Do you think that counts enough to activate the identity protection field or….” 

And then there was a large wumph as Giganta fell over, dramatically. 

And the bird guy (Birdman? Was that person? Or was Harleen getting that confused with the old cartoon? Or possibly that Michael Keaton movie.) smiled, in victory-

-Before also falling over. 

Green Lantern Guy was whimpering in a corner as Star Sapphire tenderly caressed his broken form. 

Catwoman kneed The Steve in the gut, and he also fell over, which made them five for five. 

Poison Ivy grumpily tied the heroes up to place with the bank hostages. 

  
  
  


“Just so you know, I took down two of them,” Harley Quinn said to Catwoman. 

Catwoman grunted. Or, meow-grunted. 

Harley leaned over towards Poison Ivy. “Sorry we didn’t leave any for you, Ives~”

But Poison Ivy ignored her, again. Hmm. 

Harleen was about to push the issue but then there was a short whoom of air from something entering the room suddenly. 

"Guys I am so sorry I’m late I had to use the bathroom and then I checked twitter and then i scrolled down and there was _more twitter_ and that caught me in an infinite loop- “ said a man, in a red suit. 

He glanced over the group of tied up hostages and superhero guys and the Suicide Squad (name pending) and at the slightly destroyed bank and the bags of money. 

“Flash!” The Steve said. He smiled. “It’s good you’re here. We’ve managed to get tied up; can you free us and stop the villains?” 

  
  
  


And the next thing Harley Quinn knew, she was tied up, in a group with the other supervillians. The superheroes were free and high fiving each other. Bird guy was rubbing his head.

Harley blinked. 

Giganta was still unconscious. Catwoman and Livewire looked as shocked as Harley felt. 

“But Hallessssseeeyyy~~” Star Sapphire called out. Green Lantern Guy cowered behind bird guy.

Poison Ivy blinked, and then started struggling against her bonds. “You dare tie me up in plant matter!?!?” 

“Oo, dang, our bad,” The Steve said, “Flash, can you get some synthetic rope for the plant lady?” 

“Oh, and a pizza?” Aqualad said. 

“No, no pizzas,” Green Lantern Guy said, “He’ll have to wait for it to cook. He can only speed up himself.” 

Flash blurred and there was another woosh of air around the room, except that Ivy was now tied up in a sort of patterned red rope. Probably climbing rope, but Harles had never actually gone mountain climbing before. 

“Better,” Ivy grunted. 

“Dang,” Livewire said. “I guess we got captured. The only thing to do now is yell obscenities until they consider us too toxic to keep around.” 

“You gotta lotta experience wid that, huh?” Harley said. 

“DOLPHIN DONGS!” Livewire yelled out. 

“Livewire, stop that,” Catwoman said. “The Harlequin can just get us out of here when the super boys aren’t looking.” 

Car- Star Sapphire by now started making kissy faces at Green Lantern Guy, which prompted him to run away. 

Harley Quinn blinked. Then she chuckled with theatrical bashfulness. “Wha~ me~~?"

“Yes you, Obviously you,” Catwoman sighed, “Use your looney toon powers.” 

Harley blinked. She was originally going to ask if Catwoman thought she was a contortionist. “My, Loony, toon powers?” 

Catwoman scrunched her mouth to the side. She looked sympathetic. “Sorry, were they, Merry Melodies? Or possibly, uh, Hanna Bananna?” 

“Hannah Barbera,” Harleen said. “You know its funny I was just thinking about them recently-”

“Sure, yeah, that,” Catwoman said. “Or, does it only work if it’s funny? I think I heard that somewhere.” 

“You’re thinking of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ ,” Harley said, “But the point is moot, because I don’t have cartoon powers.” 

Catwoman looked at her incredulously. “What? I thought you were a living cartoon. What are your powers then?” 

Harley made a smile. “I, don’t, have any?” 

“You don’t have powers?!” Catwoman yelled. Some of the superhero boys glanced at them. 

Harley’s expression flattened. “Hey, you don’t have powers either.” 

“Yeah, but I’m the mastermind,” Catwoman said. “It’s okay that _I_ don’t have powers.” 

“You think you’re the mastermind,” Livewire retorted, under her breath. 

Catwoman narrowed her eyes at Harleen. “Did we really just let you in be in the group because Poison Ivy wouldn't join without you?” 

From where she was looking, Harley saw Ivy frown. 

“That's what I figured,” Star Sapphire said.

“Wow, rude.” Harley said, “Just so you know, I have contributed just as much to this group as any of you, even _without_ powers, of which I don’t have, loony toony or otherwise.” 

“But,” Catwoman said, “I definitely saw you wobble your arm all bonelessly at least once.” 

“Nah, that was just the wave,” Harley said, “Or possibly Popping, or the Boogaloo if it’s accompanied by full body motion. Its a hip hop dance move, and it works by bending your arm and stretching your shoulder in such a way that it only _appears_ to be wobbling like a cartoon character." She demonstrated. 

Catwoman glared at her. 

Harley pulled her arm back under the rope, “But dontcha worry, Kitty-cat, I can still get us out of here with my _other_ ability-” 

“You _just said_ you didn’t have powers-” 

“The power,” Harley pontificated as best she could without free arms, “Of acting!” 

“Ooo,” said Arrow Boy, looking up from where the superhero boys were untying hostages, “That’s my power too!” 

Harley ignored him. “Hey, Red guy!” 

Red Guy zoomed right up to them. “Oh im the Flash” Sputtered, apparently, the Flash. “Nice to meetya you’re Harley Quinn right I think i saw you in the news-

“So are you, super fast in every way? Like, metabolically?” 

The Flash posed sequentially. “Well I can move my arms and legs fast and I have really good reflexes and also I talk fast but that’s not part of my powers-” 

“Does that mean you have to eat a lot? To power all your muscles?” Harley said. 

“Yes I load up on spaghetti before every fight-”

“And you have to drink a lot so that your body can break down all those carbohydrates?” Harley said. 

“Yes it is important to stay hydrated” Flash sputtered. To demonstrate, he downed an entire water bottle right then and there. 

Harley grinned, “And do you pee really fast too?” 

Catwoman looked at her funny. Ivy glared. 

“Ooo,” Livewire said, “so does that mean, your urethra is, just, constantly inflamed from spewing out supersonic piss?” 

Harley grinned. “Yeah, is your penis a waterjet cutter?-” 

“Gah- why are you talking about this?” Poison Ivy said. 

Flash tilted his head to the side, “Well no since your bladder muscles don’t need to move sequentially or very fast in order to pee I only pee with human-normal pressure and thus human-normal speed”

“So then you pee at a regular speed, is what you’re saying,” Harley said. So like, in a minute or so, since boys peed pretty fast.

“Yes that is correct”

“And you need to stay hydrated in order to _use_ your powers, huh?” 

“Most of them yes That is also correct” Flash nodded. 

Harley grinned. ”Good. So~~, <gurgle gurgle gurgle>, “ she started making water-running sounds with her mouth. 

Flash looked at her in confusion. 

“Oh! I get it,” Livewire said. She also started making pissing sounds with her mouth. But what else is new. 

Flash’s smile faded into a grimace, and then he smushed his lips together. “Hey boys just one moment I'm gonna go to the bathroom-” 

And there was another woosh as the Flash left the room-

“ALRIGHT EVERYONE GO!” Catwoman called out. She clawed through the ropes tying her up. Livewire electrocuted her bonds. Giganta groggily just, snapped them apart. Harley did the Boogaloo out of her own ropes and Star Sapphire radially effervesced pink plasmoid particles from her body as she exploded into ethereal flames. 

Harley untied Poison Ivy, who didn’t even thank her. Didn’t even look at her, even. 

But the six of them handily squashed the remaining superhero boys before they could react, and they even managed to grab a whole burlap sack with a dollar sign painted on the side on the way out. 

“What’d I tell ya,” Harley said to Catwoman as they booked it. “Power of _acting._ ” 

Cawoman furrowed her brow. She adjusted her grip on the bag of money. “That wasn’t ‘Acting’ so much as psychological manipurration.” 

“Oo! Yeah, just like Hannibal Lector. That’s my other power. It actually fits better than acting,” Harley stuck out her tongue. “So now I have two. Plus, like, gymnastics, so that’s three- wait, where’s Ivy?” 

Harley turned her head, to see that Ivy was aways behind them, clutching her- lower stomach. 

“Aw, itchweed,” Livewire lightning- jumped back next to Poison Ivy and held out a hand, “What, you never practiced running before?” 

“I, no I-,” Poison Ivy looked at the ground. Her face flushed. “I just really need to pee.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
  


Barbara got to the food station in the cafeteria first, again. 

This week, some students had transferred over from Gotham High, since it was looking like the long unaddressed structural issues in the actual school buildings were becoming enough of a problem that parents were pre-emptively transferring their students. 

Metropolis was also, just, large enough that the city’s largest high school was probably just going to have a steady influx of students just because of immigration. Especially with the new Lexcorp housing project being erected nearby. 

  
  
  
  


So luckily, their lunch group had someone to grab one of the nicer indoor circular tables- the ones that, conveniently, comfortably sat six average-sized teenagers. 

Barbara had managed to get the exact same one for the last couple weeks, so hopefully the other cliques would pick up on the implicit dibs.

She sent a quick meme to Harleen before digging into her cafeteria Frito pie. 

Zee and Karen joined her first. 

“Is it just me, or does it seem more crowded in here?” Zee said. 

“It’s not just you. There’ve been more students transferring in over the past week,” Barbara said. 

“Just in time for the second round of club events,” Karen said. 

“Yeah, is drama club doing anything?” Barbara asked

Zee brought her hand to her chest. “Obviously. We’re trying to decide on exactly which short play we’ll be performing during the spring club recruitment festival.” 

Diana joined them by now. She ate her Frito pie while listening to Zee describe the internal decision making process of the drama club, and also which types of plays she thought their current acting troupe would be suited for. 

“I’ll bet you’re getting a lot of club drama too, though, Di,” Barbara said. 

“Oh,” Diana said. She smiled. “Yes, every club I have joined for a week has begged me to stay, but I unfortunately can’t devote the time.” 

“Including debate club,” Jessica muttered, under her breath. 

“Putting all those ‘letting people down gently’ skills to use, huh?” Barbara said. 

Diana tilted her head to the side. “I don’t see how my experience in carrying people in a tenderly manner is relevant to declining to remain in school activities.” 

“Nah, I meant-” Barbara said, she waved the air. “You know what, never mind.” 

Diana glanced around. “Is it more crowded in here since I last ate lunch with you all?” 

“Yeah, I just explained that,” Barbara said. She inhaled. “It’s because of a lot of factors, ultimately due to population growth."

“Are there any new superheroes?” Zee asked, offhandly. 

Jessica flinched. “Wait, is that a possibility?” 

“I mean, there were six of us just randomly around,” Zee said. “So, maybe?”

“There’s a weird group over there that might be a secret underground magic society but probably are just nerds,” Barbara pointed at the far end of the hall. “Some of them are new.” 

“Where?” Zee asked. “Most secret underground magic societies have specific tells.” 

Barbara pointed. “At the table between the goth kids and the lesbian group-” 

“There is a Lesbian group here?!? Diana exclaimed. She leaned forward over the lunch table. 

Barbara froze in the middle of pointing.. "um, yeah...?” 

Diana’s expression flattened. “And you did not think this was pertinent information to tell me prior to this moment?” 

“Uhhh,” Barbara said. “No? Why- why would it…” 

Diana put her hands down on the table. “It did not occur to you that, from what you know of my identity, that I might be interested in talking to the Lesbians at this school?” 

“I um.” Barbara rubbed the back of her head, “Guess, it should have? My bad Di-”

Diana inhaled and stood up. “Well, allow me to make up for lost time. I apologize for being short with you, friend Barbara.” 

Diana started patting her hair. “Friend Zee, how does my hair look? Is it acceptably in line with your human aesthetics?"

Zee's mouth scrunched at both sides, sequentially, briefly, before she stood up and walked next to Diana. “Here, lemme spruce it up for you," she said as she pulled out a comb.

Diana seemed pleased. She stood still as Zee worked. “Oh, you say that the addition of Spruce would improve my hairdo?” 

Zee chuckled. “Well, Barb, you probably can explain this.” 

“Sure can!” Barbara tried to not feel weird about looking at Diana (She failed), “I- uh, so ‘spruce’ was originally a word for Prussia. And in the 1500’s, Prussia at the time was the height of fashion, so ‘spruce’ became a colloquialism for anything in fashion. Like, ‘spruce leather’ was leather from Prussia that was considered very fashionable.” 

Barbara waved the air. “And Spruce trees were named after the first meaning, since they were most common in Prussia. Not because they were particularly fashionable.” 

“Interesting,” Diana said. She nodded as if she understood, and Zee chided her for moving her head. 

And after Zee pronounced Diana’s hair appropriately spruced up, Diana left to try to talk to the lesbian table. 

Barbara didn’t _mean_ to stare, but she found her phone to be less interesting than real life, for once. 

Diana approached the table to hold her hand out to a tomboy with a high-fade dyed undercut, and one of the femmes started awkwardly laughing, uncontrollably. 

Diana was offered a seat and she sat down. 

And at this point Barbara realized that everyone else was also staring with her. 

"I think she’s hitting it off,” Zee said. Jessica, Karen and Kara nodded. 

"Well she's always been, effortlessly popular," Barbara said. "I think Harleen was right on the money about being free from the normal self-doubt that plagues girls of our generation.” 

“Or you know,” Karen said, “There’s the more obvious explanation.” 

“Hmmm?” Kara said. 

“That they’re all attracted to her, because she’s literally a demigod,” Karen said. 

“You think that they all go for tall, athletic foreign exchange students?” Jessica said. 

“I think I read once that most people find athleticism attractive,” Karen said. 

“So, uh,” Barbara said. She coughed. “Well, Zee, that was pretty cool of you. Do you secretly have files on how to spruce us all up?

Zee ran her hand through her hair. “No, I’m just that good. So what do you think Diana’s type is?”

“Honestly I have no idea,” Jessica said, “I was interested in seeing that myself.” 

They watched Diana talk, and only after a couple of minutes, thankfully, Barbara found the internet interesting again. She started looking up the wiki for a specific cartoon to try to win an argument with Harleen.

  
  
  
  


Eventually, Diana returned. 

"So, uh," Barbra said, "Hooow, did it go?"

"It went well,” Diana said. She patted her hair down. “Though you were mistaken, friend Barbara, none of them were Lesbians.” 

Barbara blinked. She opened her mouth, and then closed her mouth. “I- um. Weren’t, they?” 

Like, one of them was literally wearing a lesbian pride flag scarf- 

Diana nodded. "None of them were even of european heritage, let alone Greek.” 

There was a chorus of blinking. 

“Oooohh,” Barbara said. She then started laughing, uncontrollably. She pounded the table with her fist as she collapsed onto it. Karen pulled her lunch away from the collateral zone. 

"What- what's happening?" Zee said. 

"None of them were from the Greek island of Lesbos," Diana said, "I thought it might be grand to meet some of my fellow countrywomen and I was excited to do so once you told me (And also upset that you apparently withheld this information from me until now), but it appears there was another communication mishap.” 

Karen then started trying to hide a chuckle. Jessica and Kara looked at each other in befuddlement as Zee opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. 

“Barbara, you want to take this?” Karen said. 

Barbara wiped a tear away from her eye as she gasped for air. “So! Uh, where to begin- ‘Lesbos’ is the third largest island in Greece-” 

“Fourth,” Diana said, “Because Themyscira is a boundless land beyond the dimensions of mortals.” 

Barbara shot a finger gun at Diana. “Sure, yes. But ‘Lesbian’ literally means ‘originating from the island of Lesbos’ and emerged as an- ah, identity, because the ancient Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos, was a woman who wrote a lot of poems about,” Barbara shrugged, “Seducing young maidens and such.” 

Jessica, Zee, and Kara nodded. 

Diana closed her eyes and smiled in nationalistic pride. “I see my people have influenced the broader world yet again.” 

“And, Diana, uh,” Barbara continued, “So in most English speaking countries, 'lesbian' means, 'a woman who is attracted to other women.” 

Diana tilted her head to the side. “You need a word for that?” 

“That is,” Barbara said, “Its a woman, or a girl, who isn’t attracted to boys.” 

Diana hit her palm with her fists. “Oh! I understand; your human boys find themselves to generally be available for courtship but 'lesbians’ are those who don’t subscribe to the standard assumptions of courtship intent.” 

Barbara blinked. "I can't, think of any part of that that's incorrect, but I also don’t think you’re understanding the culture of heteronormativity.” She pontificated, ineffectually, “That is, usually, girl- erm, women and girls, want to date boys, but not other women, and a ‘lesbian’ thus is someone who is different, for wanting only to date other ‘lesbians’.” 

Diana blinked. Then she nodded. “Oh, so it is a sort of performance, to signal to other mortals which subtypes of mortals one wishes to be courted by?” 

"That isn't, entirely false," Barbara said. She shrugged. 

"Anyway, " Zee said to change the subject, "It seemed like you hit it off?” she said. 

"Oh, I did," Diana nodded. “We shared compliments about each other's appearance, dress, and cosmetic preferences. And they invited me, this weekend, to go watch a 'Steven Universe'.” 

“Oh nooo,” Barbara said. 

Diana tilted her head to the side. “Is that a bad thing? Is it some sort of grisly display?” 

“Not at all,” Barbara said, “It's a TV show.” 

Diana tilted her head to the other side. “Then is it a bad tv show?

“No, it's actually amazing. Its just,” Barbara scrunched her mouth to the side, “Watching it together is a form of lesbian courtship.”

"I, don't think that's true?" Jessica said. 

Diana visibly pondered. "So you are saying that Mary was intending to court me, with that invitation?" she said. 

"I mean, maybe?” Barbara said. “Maybe it was a low-key courtship attempt. Like, plausibly deniable as simply just a friend thing, but if you displayed interest in her she’d then make a mo- to actually formally court you.” 

“Its kind of what watching TV together is for,” Zee said. 

“Well technically, us mortals are just always preoccupied with hooking up so literally everything has eventually turned into a method of courtship,” Barbara said. 

Diana tilted her head to the side. “But regularly, you girls have me watch TV with you-” 

“WWaaaatching tv together is something friends do too, yes,” Barbara said, quickly, “But since theoretically romance is coincident with friendship in many areas, it can also be a courtship thing if you do romancy stuff during it." 

“Also just to confirm,” Barbara said, “We haven’t done any of the things that would be involved with courtship with you. 

Diana nodded, slowly, as she visibly cogitated. “Well, if friendship can blossom into love, it makes sense that some people would pursue friendship first as a step towards romance.” 

“Or, maybe some people start out genuinely only wanting to be friends, before they find themselves mutually falling in love,” Barbara said. She shrugged. “But I only have books and tv shows to go off of so I don’t know.” 

“Well, you have been a very overachieving guide to my understanding of the mortal world so far, Friend Barbara, so it makes sense that some aspects of the world are outside your purview- Friend Zee, are you okay?” Diana said. 

Zee’s eyes widened and she grinned with the whole of her face. “Okay. Okay Diana,” she said, “it’s my turn to geek out about human stuff at you~” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

* * *

It was lunchtime at Gotham High. 

  
  


And one thing about making a concerted effort not to have her boyfriend be her whole life, was that she could still have fulfilling social interactions even when she wasn’t around arthur she had other people to fill up on socialization with. 

Harleen sent a quick meme to Babsy and then cut the line to grab a tray of, carrots? or something? And a reheated barbecue pork sandwich (Or more like, sand _which_ -animal-is-this-made-of? Eh, she’d workshop it). She made her way out to the outdoor seating to look around to try to find her regular eating buddy. 

Pam wasn't in the regular outside seating areas- but one of the more secluded ones. it was right next to a rusty gynasium frim three decades ago, so most students tended to avoid it. 

“Hey Giiirrll-" Harleen waved at Pam-pam. 

Pamela grabbed her plant- it was Vyrgyl again today, Harleen was pretty sure- and her home lunch and walked further around the school. 

Yeah, it was pretty clear Pam was mad at her. 

Like, sure, Harleen had noticed that Pamela had been ignoring her for a few days- and at first she was all, okay, that's fair, sometimes introverts need space when they run out of social energy, and they had spent a lot of time around each other recently, but noooow, maybe it was a little concerning.

Harleen easily caught up to Pamela in this little race around further and further secluded parts of the school grounds. 

"Pamela!" Harleen called out again. “C’mon Pammy, what’s wrong?” 

Pam didn't say anything, not even to correct her name, so this must be more serious than she thought-

Harleen took a breath and put on a comforting and accessible smile. "So ah get that yer upset and I'm sorry that it happened. Do you want to talk about it?" 

Pamela grumbled under her breath. "oh, _now_ you want to talk to me." 

"Aww, Pam-pam~" Harleen said. She tried again to pat Pam's shoulder but she recoiled away. "I always want to talk to you-"

"You liar!" Pam yelled out, suddenly. 

Harleen blinked. She put her hands up. "I mean, fair. Is this, about me bailing this weekend-" 

Pamela actually looked offended. "Obviously!" She narrowed her eyes. 

Harleen put her hands up. "Okay, fine, that’s fair-” 

"You abandoned me!" 

Harleen opened her mouth to protest but caught herself in time. "Okay. I’m sorry I made you feel abandoned-" 

“You didn’t ‘make me feel’ abandoned," Pamela seethed, "You literally bailed at the last minute to leave me alone with _a bunch of strangers._ ” 

"Babs isn-" Harleen caught herself, "Look, I'm sorry. Arthur threw a fit and I, ah, had to help him manage- well,“ Harleen grimaced and glanced to the side, “And honestly it kind of turned into a bit of a fight so I probably should have just gone with ya…” 

Pamela was shaking. She looked at the ground and balled her free fist. "Oh, so you admit I'm your second choice, now?" she whispered, accusingly. 

“Pamela, that’s not true,” Harleen said. And, yeah, this was probably a bad thing to say but she couldn't resist a joke, "If anything, you’re my _third_ choice because Babs-" 

Ivy emitted an animalistic shriek and waved her free arm, and the vegetation around this area of the school sprang to life and grabbed onto Harleens legs-

Harleen flinched back in shock and glanced around to see if anyone else was around to see them. "Woah- _powers!_ " 

"After everything I've done for you and you just abandon me like I'm nothing!" Pamela's voice cracked. 

That, was a bit to process, huh? "Look, I, didn’t realize that this was such a big deal- " 

"You knew I don't like people!" 

"Definitely-” 

"And you knew I was only going to go with the mall if _you_ were there!” 

"Uh-" 

Pamela’s voice was cracking every third word. Her eyes were read. "I went to the mall for you! I bail you out of your stupid plans and listen to your dumb jokes-” 

Okay, ouch-

Pam grit her teeth and seethed. “I joined that stupid villain group because you got bored with just me-” 

Harleen glanced around again to double check that they were alone, because that was easier than, parsing that revelation. 

Like, she honestly thought it’d be good for Ivy to have more than just one kleptomaniac villain ally, since she and Harley Quinn didn’t really have a huge overlap in their crime profiles-

Harleen stretched her mouth, as a warm up. "Look, Pamela. I validate your feelings- "

"Don’t pull that shit with me!” 

The vines tightened. 

“You can’t just therapize me! You’re not a psychologist!” 

Harles let that slide off her. She grinned, wryly, to the wall. "I mean, not _yet_ -” 

"You're not! So stop treating me like some kind of test subject!” 

Harleen inhaled deeply and then let it all out through her nose. "Alright. you're upset and that’s valid- “ 

Harleen used her own powers- the gymnastics ones- to flip out of the vines and close into melee distance with Ivy. She plucked Vyrgyl out of Pamela’s elbow (And dang did she never do that before, because the pot was super light) to expertly drop onto her foot and then juggle it safely onto the ground. 

And Harleen hugged Pamela around the torso, pinning her arms to her sides. "Shhh-shh-shh -” 

"Get off me!” Pamela yelled.

“We’re gonna just hug this out, okay-” 

“NO!” 

Harleen guessed she had always just heard Ivy when she was giving soft-spoken rants about how humans were dumb and bad and stuff, since that outburst was loud enough to immobilize Harleen throught pure shock. 

Or, you know, maybe it was the vines that suddenly sprouted all over her body, pinning her in place. 

Pamela picked up her plant and left, only glancing at Harleen once before huffing off.

  
  
  


The vines grew slack almost immediately, which meant that Pamela hadn't, like, instructed or controlled or however her plant powers manifested, them to keep her tangled up. But Harleen spent a few minutes just, laying there in the overgrowth. 

Dang, she had really misread that situation, huh? Was she the only one who felt that kind of came out of left field? 

Honestly it was hard to tell how upset Pam was usually, since she was continuously on the verge of going on megalomaniacal rants about how she hated everyrhing, and Harleen had always assumed that was performative misanthropy-

Shit, if that was all completely serious, that meant Ives was just, constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown, all the time, and Harleen had teased her about it. Dang. 

So Harleen had probably subconsciously figured that she was Pamela's only friend, but not really processed it, until now. How lonely must she be with her only company being plants who, like, primarily only experience singular sensations, with a small amount of environmental context and only a small degree of memory? 

Well, anyway, nuttin to do for it now. Pam just needed to cool off and Harles would, try to be a more patient, understanding individual, to be the kind of person all these broken people in her life needed. The best psychologist in the world, ya know.

Like, she was already on the hook for that already, aha, so this was just, super convenient, right?

Harles broke free from the vines and pulled out her phone to text her boyfriend. 

heeeyyyy~-

-Crawling back already, huh? 

Baby you know I can’t resist ya. -

-Well you certainly seem to be able to resist reason. 

Harleen scrunched her mouth to the side. 

-I’m not interested in talking unless you admit I’m right. 

Harleen scrunched her mouth to the other side. Honestly, no, but she also, preferred not to fight again. It seemed like they spent too much time doing that already. 

Sure thing, baby, (Face Savouring Delicious Food )-

-I don’t think you mean it. 

Harleen exhaled for like 6 seconds. Like, guilty. Maybe honesty was the best way forward, then?

C'mon Baby, I don't want to keep fighting.-

;) -

:( -

  
  


Welp. Alright then. 

  
  


She sent a quick meme to Babs, to just, try to fill up on socialization by the end of the lunch period. 

Like, around 70% of the time Babs would respond right away, but they had years ago established that occasionally stuff would come up and she wouldn’t be staring at her glowing rectangle, constantly. 

So like, Harles didn’t hold it against her best friend that this time was in that 30%. Just, it was, unfortunate. 

But on the plus side, nobody was around to stop her from workshopping her Koala bit. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I officially declare stupid villian pun name bankruptcy. Couldn't think of anything after two months. So, unless I get a lot of outcry, it's gonna be the same sorts of incredibly banal villians with less punny names, from now on. 
> 
> I think, next chapter will be a flashback to how Harvey and Ivy met.


End file.
